The Shadow on the Other Side of the Mirror (Stargate/SRW)

[Manzikert]

Shanks nodded. "In all probability. I'd still prefer to have something ready to give them a battle scar to remember us by if they get aggressive." He switched off the speaker for a moment. "Make a note, General Hammond - I'm going to recommend we start making things 'interesting'. Your boys have a whole load of Davey Crockett miniature nuclear warheads dating back to the sixties, we can make our alien enemies cringe a little if we start strapping those things into ASATs and fighter-scale missiles. We need something to scrape the paint off these huge buggers."

It's always bean SoD breaking for me when we don't star using nuclear air to air and surface to air nuclear weapons to shoot down alien invaders given the opportunity.

Your boys have a whole load of Davey Crockett miniature nuclear warheads dating back to the sixties

Do we? I would have thought they where all gone decades ago or at least back in ~'91 when we got rid of all the cool small tac-nukes. 2 Kiloton 155mm howitzer rounds kick all kinds of ass.

Maybe just cutting out Davey Crockett would make more sense. "Your boys have made a whole load of miniature nuclear warheads dating back to the sixties." Something to that effect would get rid of the implication that we've been holding on to obsolete weapons for 40 years even though they've been obsoleted many times over since then.

Does anyone think that there will be a push (or if it's a good idea) for a new layered nuclear SAM system? Something like the proposal for Sentinel, but with a third layer of missiles capable of hitting targets in orbit.

[Pale Wolf]

I agree that the disintigrate thing was a bad idea. Otherwise, three zat blasts and no more go'auld. Something tells me the sarcophagus can't put a pile of dust back together. Instead we get recurring villains because you have to not only kill them, you have to make certain to take the body to keep their advanced med tech from resurrecting them.

For some problems, there are no solutions.

For everything else, there's fire.

Do we? I would have thought they where all gone decades ago or at least back in ~'91 when we got rid of all the cool small tac-nukes. 2 Kiloton 155mm howitzer rounds kick all kinds of ass.

Maybe just cutting out Davey Crockett would make more sense. "Your boys have made a whole load of miniature nuclear warheads dating back to the sixties." Something to that effect would get rid of the implication that we've been holding on to obsolete weapons for 40 years even though they've been obsoleted many times over since then.

They're not in service anymore, but militaries take a longass time to actually get rid of anything - it's likely even the deactivated stuff is sitting in a yard somewhere. The W72 warheads (descended off the W54 used in the Crockett) were in-service (actually in ground-attack missiles) until around 1979. Whether it's still functional, of course, is another question, but a modernized design can be made without much difficulty, and at this point there's certainly the political will to do it.

Mostly, the reference to the Crockett was to bring it immediately to mind for a reader who's a little familiar with the hardware - saying 'a whole load of miniature nuclear warheads' makes it a bit harder for the reader to flash immediately to the Crockett.

I pulled the same thing in Claire's reference to AVLIS, actually - it's Atomic Vapour Laser Isotope Separator, but she called them AVLIS isotope seperators, because A: she hardly speaks perfectly, and B: it explains what they do to the reader.

Does anyone think that there will be a push (or if it's a good idea) for a new layered nuclear SAM system? Something like the proposal for Sentinel, but with a third layer of missiles capable of hitting targets in orbit.

It's not an ideal solution (anything ground-based loses a lot of energy in fighting gravity until it gets up to an in-space target), but it is a solution that can actually be implemented, right now, before alien technology that nobody actually has yet materializes.

Volksyn is pushing for that with the reengineered-for-space-attack ICBMs (and he does plan for them to be nuclear-armed eventually, he just has to keep 'em off for now due to the Outer Space Treaty), though that's an interim solution - mid-term, you're looking at either purpose-built-for-space SOMs, or weapons loaded aboard space stations and/or satellites.

Weapons of mass destruction are technically illegal in space, by the Outer Space Treaty (yeah, Samuels's epic plan also violated international law...), but they're going to be considered necessary thanks to the aliens, and the OTS does allow any signatory to the treaty to withdraw from it within one year of giving notice - that'll happen more or less as soon as any particular nation feels they can afford the domestic and international reactions to them doing it.

Of course, nukes don't blow through shields. But that doesn't mean you can't Macross Missile Massacre 'em...

Anti-air nukes at various altitudes are much trickier, thanks to public nucleophobia and the potential risks of nuclear fallout. They're not necessarily critical, though - pretty much everything in the goa'uld inventory barring the ha'tak is very easily killable with conventional weaponry (see: Stingers and AMRAAMs being more lethal against Death Gliders than they are against conventional fighters - real-combat conditions for missiles like that tend to be more like 30% kill probability than the near-100% manufacturers claim, probably because the people they're shooting at use electronic countermeasures and actually try to dodge). This leaves you without defence capable of nuking a low-altitude ha'tak, but you can kill ha'tak with conventional weaponry, if you can fire enough of it. They'd have potential usefulness, but public reaction is unlikely to allow nukes beyond the Karman line.

[Manzikert]

They're not in service anymore, but militaries take a longass time to actually get rid of anything - it's likely even the deactivated stuff is sitting in a yard somewhere. The W72 warheads (descended off the W54 used in the Crockett) were in-service (actually in ground-attack missiles) until around 1979. Whether it's still functional, of course, is another question, but a modernized design can be made without much difficulty, and at this point there's certainly the political will to do it.

Mostly, the reference to the Crockett was to bring it immediately to mind for a reader who's a little familiar with the hardware - saying 'a whole load of miniature nuclear warheads' makes it a bit harder for the reader to flash immediately to the Crockett.

I guess it just seems silly to me to be thinking about the Davy Crockett at all when discussing air to air missiles. Not much of a problem, but it did cause a bit of a spit take for me. Why was he talking about shooting a recoilless rifle at flying things? He didn't actually say that, its just what came to mind.

If your just talking the W54 warhead it was in service from 1963-72 on the AIM-26 Falcon before they remanufactured it. The origonal version of the AIM-47 Falcon designed for the F-108 and F-12 was also going to have an optional nuclear payload.


Now that would have been beautiful if it hadn't gotten canceled.

Does anyone think that there will be a push (or if it's a good idea) for a new layered nuclear SAM system? Something like the proposal for Sentinel, but with a third layer of missiles capable of hitting targets in orbit.

It's not an ideal solution (anything ground-based loses a lot of energy in fighting gravity until it gets up to an in-space target), but it is a solution that can actually be implemented, right now, before alien technology that nobody actually has yet materializes.[/quote]That's pretty much what I was thinking. It works as an interim solution and as a back up to space based weapons.

Anti-air nukes at various altitudes are much trickier, thanks to public nucleophobia and the potential risks of nuclear fallout. They're not necessarily critical, though - pretty much everything in the goa'uld inventory barring the ha'tak is very easily killable with conventional weaponry (see: Stingers and AMRAAMs being more lethal against Death Gliders than they are against conventional fighters - real-combat conditions for missiles like that tend to be more like 30% kill probability than the near-100% manufacturers claim, probably because the people they're shooting at use electronic countermeasures and actually try to dodge). This leaves you without defence capable of nuking a low-altitude ha'tak, but you can kill ha'tak with conventional weaponry, if you can fire enough of it. They'd have potential usefulness, but public reaction is unlikely to allow nukes beyond the Karman line.

A pity that. I guess that means no salvo firing improved Spartans at incoming Hataks, Alkesh, and big fighter swarms and then hitting incoming death gliders and Alkeshes trying to take out the launch sites with Sprint missiles pulling 100g.

[Pale Wolf]

Now that would have been beautiful if it hadn't gotten canceled.

Yeah... wouldn't it? Real pity the stuff isn't like to still be in working order.

That's pretty much what I was thinking. It works as an interim solution and as a back up to space based weapons.

I'd say you're more likely to be looking at a network of space guns as a mid-to-long-term backup - Russia, Canada, a few other nations are going to be working on them, because what this Earth needs yesterday is cheap spacelift capability. And they'll figure, you know, I'm firing this gigantic gun out of the atmosphere... couldn't I target enemy ships with it?

(This, among many other things in the fic, is likely to make O'Neill the happiest man alive.)

You lose more energy out of a space gun (higher velocity down at the bottom means more energy lost to drag), but on the other hand... you'll still have at least some of it to give to the bad guys, and why not fire a missile out of the gun? (This particular idea actually originated for a Nanoha fic, but I guess it's likely to debut here)

A pity that. I guess that means no salvo firing improved Spartans at incoming Hataks, Alkesh, and big fighter swarms and then hitting incoming death gliders and Alkeshes trying to take out the launch sites with Sprint missiles pulling 100g.

Don't worry! There'll be plenty of alternate fun to make up for it. And really, considering even MANPADs and AMRAAMs can kill gliders...

Besides. Wanna guess how things'll go in a fight outside atmo?

[Wyrd]

It has seemed strange to me or some time that we haven't built orbital catapults that would cost what 5 launches currently cost and reduce the cost of a shuttle launch immensely, not to mention making launching satellites incredibly cheap and giving you the ability to launch compact modules into space that could then be assembled once up there. One of the biggest costs of launching is the fuel needed to lift the fuel needed to lift the fuel that actually carries the ship that last step into orbit. The more of that energy requirement you could shift to, say, a magnetic acceleration rail a few miles long removes not only the fuel needed to get to that speed, but all of that fuel that had to be spent just countering the weight of all that fuel.

NASA is at least finally seriously approaching the issue of alternative launch methods and space craft that have a much higher percentage of reusability, eventually targeting a point where no part of the craft has to be rebuilt every time it is launched, though a better reentry system is needed before we can have that, but this is tech we could have/should have had a decade or more ago if they could have gotten the budget to redesign the system instead of having to milk out the cost of each launch individually and being stuck using old tech. Something tells me the space programs in this world are suddenly going to have more funds and scientists than they know what to do with, and entirely new divisions devoted to developing better space weaponry.

[Pale Wolf]

Well, the main reason I figure we don't see as much development as we could do... (Pause for shiver. Sorry, another forum has a semifrequently updating thread by a complete loon who thinks it's a government conspiracy to keep us all trapped on Earth as slave labour.)

As I was saying, main reason I think is simply that space development isn't considered a major priority for most big nations. Maybe they don't see the same potential we do, or maybe they just figure that by the time there are rewards seen from space development, they'll be out of power, but they will be in office at the time when the spending is done.

But yes, space development is now considered a major priority. We're looking at two main thrusts for the nations that have decided to take on the goa'uld. #1, Stargate ops - ground combat, intelligence, reverse-engineering, and diplomacy. However, Stargate ops are pretty much fine. There isn't really much magic that can be done at this point to enhance the last three, and ground combat's already raping the jaf'fa. #2, space ops. Russia's taking the first step in converting ICBMs so SOMs, and you're gonna continue to see rapid development in this sector, especially as alien (and Shadow Mirror, actually more Shadow Mirror than alien) technology starts leaking into the markets and giving people new ideas and new tools. (Even if you try to limit the utility of the technology you're leaking - which Shadow Mirror really isn't - there are immense degrees of cross-utility. For instance, the high-temperature alloys necessary in a nuclear fusion reactor - or, for that matter, in a staff weapon - are just as applicable for use in railguns, higher-performance rocket/jet engines, spacecraft heat shields, aircraft hulls allowing them to withstand faster speeds... The NID had no fucking business complaining, a handful of staff weapons was enough to revolutionize the planet.)

[Pale Wolf]

Disclaimer: No copyright is mine, thus no copyrighted character is. If you recognize them from something that's not written by 'Pale Wolf', I have no legal claim to them. If a list is requested, I'll dig it up.

Author's note for forum and pre-readers: The Volksyn family from the previous two chapters has, upon input from Russian readers, been renamed to the more proper Volkov (Volkova for the women).

The Shadow on the Other Side of the Mirror

By Pale Wolf

Chapter Three

Ash to Ash

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Alexander Walther was lucky not to be a very giggly person. It made it easier to hide his giddiness, as he made some final adjustments on the bevy of sensors being trained on the Stargate.

He was less into the whole 'new frontiers' and 'boldly going where no man has gone before' thing than Filio had been, but there was a whole lot of potential in this EOT toy to fix the problems in the places man had already been, and that was well within his interests.

He frowned slightly, shaking off the momentary thoughts of Filio. The man had deserved better than he'd got. Maybe one day Alex would get the chance to finish the Terrestrial Dream for him. For now, this was pretty close.

Alex pushed off the floor and floated back to the makeshift observation room they'd put together in one of Shangri-La's cargo bays, brushing off his hands. "Okay, scanners over here are ready to go."

"Finally!" Claire chirped. "I thought we'd never get around to it!"

"Anticipation sweetens the deal." Colonel Mauser had insisted they take the time to go over the SGC data Mizrahi had brought back, and set up sensors to confirm the SGC's readings and theories, as well as anything their own researchers could come up with and think of to check on. It had been a few weeks already before they now got to open the gate - though they hadn't been working solely on the gate in that time. Among other things, continuing to go through and attempt to identify the vast amount of mysterious alien hardware.

Claire reached out, catching Alex as he floated by and drawing him to the console next to her. "Sure, if it happens at all... 'least we're about to make launch."

Alex nodded, pulling himself into the seat and fastening his harness so he didn't go floating away. They were out at the asteroid belt now, and while he knew microgravity, he'd appreciate if the construction crews could get the habitat and spin-gravity completed before bone and muscle atrophy started setting in - he was frail enough as it was, since they'd taken Shangri-La's prefabricated spin-section to give them a head start on constructing the... rather ambitious plans for Outer Heaven, along with the sealed-building prefabs. "Balthazar, you ready?"

The pale-haired young woman nodded sharply from a console a ways down, gently pulling the crown, visor, and headphone assembly down onto herself, through her floating masses of hair. "Simple input system is running... drone is working according to parameters." Down in front of the gate, Alex could see a full-suited W-Series drone stretching and swinging its limbs, presumably Balthazar running it through its paces.

Momo Mizrahi, seated in the observation positions behind them, looked up nervously at the scarred Lieutenant Virgil sitting next to her - the nervousness was probably understandable, the man was still a little irritable after Hornst's rendition of 'twenty-four trillion bottles of beer on the wall' over the week they'd waited for pickup in orbit, and he didn't like bioroids to start with. She swallowed slightly. "Um... Coptic program loaded. Ready for translation."

Claire grinned, reaching up to flick a few switches. "Okay, diagnostics section two ready to go. All stations have reported in, we are ready to activate the gate."

Colonel Mauser nodded, leaning forward as much as his seat's harness allowed. "Then start it."

Claire grinned at the young woman next to her. "You're up, Maria."

Balthazar tapped a button on her headset, darkening the visor so as not to distract herself with outside sights, and focused on controlling the W-Series drone - itself essentially a robot made of semibiological materials. Virgil called them meat puppets sometimes, and the drones really didn't have any more sentience than that, they had basic skills but less independent thought than a pet Labrador. AI didn't get much more impressive than that, except in the case of the Numbers.

The drone straightened where it stood in front of the 'Dial Home Device', and brought its hand up to press the first sigil. The gate's inner ring spun into position, and the first triangular capacitor - screw it, he'd call them 'chevrons' like the SGC did - slid into place with a satisfying, echoing thunk.

Claire whistled at the readings beginning to spool in. "Well, Lemon's gonna be pissed she's missing this... I think we just covered a decade's worth of R&D pushing that button."

"Continue?" Balthazar asked, holding the drone's hand over the next button on the DHD.

Colonel Mauser waited for a moment for Claire or Alex to raise a protest, then nodded. "Continue at the current pace, and remain ready to stop if told."

"Yes sir." The drone pressed the second button.

Then the third.

Alex pored over the data as fast as he could, trying to catch any potential problems before they exacerbated...

Fourth sigil in.

Fifth.

Sixth...

"Initiating point of origin."

"Proceed."

The drone's hand settled onto the large crystalline facing in the center of the DHD, and in an instant, the wormhole, looking for all the world like a pool of water, formed with a flash in the center of the ring, and the 'water' boiled out in the short unstable vortex the SGC's operating data had warned them about, disintegrating a series of rods placed in front of the gate.

Alex looked aside, reading the numbers displayed on the HUD in his glasses. "Unstable vortex sensors lost as predicted. Data recovered... no damage transfer beyond the apparent. It's a clean shear."

"And wormhole is stable," Claire ended with a grin. "Timer's running and the data's a floatin' in."

Balthazar cleared her visor, turning in her seat to look at the observation group. "Permission to deploy drone?"

Colonel Mauser brought his hands together in polite applause. "Granted. I suppose if this works, we'll need to build an 'iris' for defence..."

Lieutenant Virgil shrugged. "If it doesn't, you can have Walther and O'Neill rip it apart and poke at the insides. Either's fine."

Balthazar nodded, setting her visor back to exclusion mode and resettling in her seat. "Deploying drone." Under her command, the W-Series unit pushed off the DHD, calmly floating to the wormhole...

... and gone.

"Drone telemetry lost."

Alex started the timer. "Predicted resumption of telemetry in five seconds."

Moments later... "Telemetry's back up. We're through," Balthazar stated.

The audience all leaned forward to look at the display screens - even Alex (and of course Claire) spared some time from the readouts to look at the new world through the eyes of a W-Series drone.

It was very green. A long, grassy field, studded with the occasional rock. And as the drone's view panned up, pine trees and mountains were visible in the distance. This was basically what they were expecting - they'd picked out a planet the SGC had explored and listed as 'mostly harmle-'... Claire was infecting him. They'd picked a planet the SGC listed as uninhabited, with nothing of apparent interest.

"One small step for a robot, one giant leap for robotkind... Wow, is that a maple leaf? Travel halfway across the galaxy to end up right at home, huh Alex?"

Alex rolled his eyes. "You already know I never set foot in Canada until I was a teenager." He was from the colonies - admittedly from Albion, a Canadian-populated colony, but still.

"Awwww."

Colonel Mauser cleared his throat, and Alex and Claire hopped back to work as the W-Series turned, looking around the gate - more greenery.

Claire glanced at a readout. "Okay, looks human-habitable. Drone's sensors are reporting no electromagnetic anomalies, oxygen-nitrogen-etcetera mix well within human parameters, temperature is a brisk eighteen degrees Celsius positive, pressure is 0.998-I'm-not-rattling-more atmospheres, no apparent toxins, I-could-say-more-but-you-wouldn't-get-it, gravity's around one gee, and in other news-"

"O'Neill."

"-we are clear to send personnel," Claire finished, without skipping a beat.

"Walther?"

Alex flipped through his screens, nodding. "Telemetry's basically received. I'm still gonna want to run an endurance test, but we are good for stage two." He'd especially like to see if they couldn't burn past the purported thirty-eight minute limit by hooking in Shangri-La's reactors. If anything could do it, it would be those sixteen reactors that, together, outgunned the power generation capability of every single power plant presently on Earth put together. Maybe from a distance. Everyone always got so nervous when the words 'fusion reactor' came up...

Colonel Mauser nodded. "Then commence stage two."

Balthazar turned the drone to face the DHD and gate, and froze it in place. "Command laid in with a ten minute delay."

Alex tapped a sequence on his keyboard. "Cutting telemetry." The screens winked out to a standby display.

A few moments later, the 'water' whisked away, the gate going silent. SGC records were accurate - the gate did shut after a short time with no signals passing through it.

The wait time was filled differently for each - some small talk (Claire, Hornst, and whoever they could squeeze it out of), some silent contemplation (Mauser and Virgil), some nervous fidgeting (Mizrahi), some stoically watching the screens and waiting (Balthazar and Grace), and Alex busying himself by running through the already-received data on the gate's operation.

And then, the seven visible chevrons flared, thumping into position. A moment later, the unstable vortex boiled out, and the gate stabilized, open.

"Incoming wormhole," Claire noted, completely unnecessarily.

Looked rather different on the sensors trained at the gate. It was quite likely the only-one-way property was accurate, though they'd have to test it, just in case they could get away with something like that.

"Drone telemetry re-established," Balthazar reported, as the screens lit back up. "All functioning appears nominal... and nothing snuck up on it while we were out of contact."

Two-way signal transmission worked, at least.

Colonel Mauser nodded. "Well then. We can contact home from offworld... now see if we can come back."

"Returning drone to gate." The W-Series unit's view approached the pool of water on the offworld Stargate, and then passed through, screen cutting off.

Approximately five seconds later by the timer Alex had started, and the black-suited, red-and-white-plated drone stepped out from the ring of standing water and onto the deck. As soon as its foot pressed against the deck, it began floating upward - and without anything to grip, it continued to do so, and would probably bonk into the ceiling soon enough. That split-second of adjustment between gravities proved Balthazar was not spaceborn.

Balthazar pulled off the simple input headset, frowning. "... Drone has returned." They'd retrieve it soon enough to run thorough tests on it.

Claire craned her neck back, looking upside down at the audience. "Hey Virgil, wanna hit the button for the next test?"

Lieutenant Virgil rolled his eyes, unfastening and gently pushing off, floating towards Balthazar's seat. He caught it before passing by, halting his momentum. "I may as well. She's unlikely to shut up otherwise."

Balthazar nodded, leaning aside. "Go ahead, sir."

He leaned past her (and around her hair), feet floating up in midair as counterweight to his motions, and tapped a control on her console.

Immediately, a second W-Series drone unfolded from the back of the gate room, and pushed off, floating towards the gate. Less direct control was required for this, they only really needed to tell it to jump (or sit, bark, etcetera) and it knew how to do that.

The drone vanished into the gate with a placid ripple, and Alex hit the timer.

"Telemetry lost," Balthazar reported.

"... Anticipated five second period has passed, drone has not reintegrated," Alex noted when the time came. Well, they'd been told it was one-way... seemed it was.

Colonel Mauser hummed to himself. "Very well. Keep the timer running just in case, and wait for the gate to close. And everyone trade out, we're repeating this test ten more times and I want you rested before I'm sending you offworld."

Alex nodded, unfastening his harness and pressing off the chair as the second operations team floated forward.

Colonel Mauser, and Marita Grace at his side, remained to watch the tests.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

"Okay, look, General... the Canadians? Fine, I was expecting them anyway. The Brits? Hey, why not? But the Russians?! Vietnam?!"

Teal'c understood part of the background behind O'Neill's opposition to this - these 'Russian' and 'Vietnamese' Tau'ri were once enemies O'Neill had fought. But... "I do not understand, O'Neill. They were once your enemies... but I was as well. I personally took you captive, and yet you have spoken for me."

O'Neill clutched his temple. "That's... this is different."

General Hammond leaned back in his chair in the briefing room. "You knew this was coming, Colonel. The potential rewards from the gate are too great, none of them can afford for us to amass too much alien technology - we already have plenty, if not enough to satisfy the NID, and it's still getting analyzed and reverse-engineered. Even more once we get a shuttle up there to ship those shattered gliders down here. We're looking at a potential war from people who get left out of the program, and we can not afford one with the gould hanging overhead. They fear we'll use the technological lead we're slowly getting against them."

"But... we... won't!" O'Neill half-yelled.

"You won't. I won't. President Nichol, given that he's authorized foreign access, won't. Can we say the same for the next President? Or the one after that? Or everyone in Congress and the Pentagon? Or the NID?"

O'Neill remained silent.

"We were unpopular enough before the planet got bombarded and we failed to inform people about it. We need to make some very generous gestures, fast, before the other five and a half billion people we're down here with start thinking we're trying to squeeze them out of the planet. You heard that five Islamic scholar types have issued a religious opinion that it's okay to kill Americans wherever they find them?"

O'Neill waved a hand dismissively. "It's Osama bin Laden. He'd have said that crap whether or not the gate even existed."

Daniel Jackson blinked, looking to O'Neill. "Uh, I'm sorry, who?"

"Saudi Arabian rich kid with an ego complex. Guy's constructed a worldview where he's the only one who can save the world from the corruption of reason, rationality, democracy... He puts on a religious front but it's really all about him being the one who's right - the guy's claimed credit for the fall of the goddamn Soviet Union!"

Samantha Carter cocked her head, hair bouncing a little to the side - it was quite grown out from the first days of SG-1 at this time. "... How would that even work?"

"Punk was in Afghanistan. He thinks he was critical in causing the Soviet withdrawal, but honestly he was damn near incompetent." O'Neill's eyes widened slightly at that statement, and he shut his mouth, ignoring the further quizzical looks from the remainder of the team.

A slip? Unfortunately, Teal'c did not quite know this world's history well enough to be sure what the slip was.

"Anyway. My point is, Bin Laden is a psychotic who hated us already. That idiot saying we suck and can't you please kill us now is hardly a surprise."

General Hammond nodded. "And that is my point, Colonel." At the slightly raised eyebrow, he explained, "People already hate us. With or without reason. Can we, as a nation, really afford to be actually giving them sane, logical reasons? Absolutely nobody else on the planet wants us to be the sole power on Earth - how would you react to the idea of Russia keeping the gate to themselves and using it to advance their own status both on and offworld?"

O'Neill gritted his teeth. "That's completely..."

"There could be a war over the gate, Colonel, people are scared, they're angry, and we're already getting reports of tourists harassed abroad. Whether or not we'd be in the right, whether or not we'd win... a lot of people could die, ours and theirs, and neither deserving it. Is it really worth that?"

"... No sir."

"Which is why we have to share access to the gate. Even without the gould to worry about, we can't afford the fallout from this. With aliens that want us all dead or enslaved? I want the other ninety percent of the world on my side and at their best."

"Fine, but inside Cheyenne Mountain? On... gah!"

General Hammond shook his head. "First off, they're still restricted from access to NORAD any more than a random civilian has. Second, that's just temporary. The SGC's getting a better base decided on and constructed now, and it won't be next door to a critical United States facility."

"A Russian on my team isn't temporary!"

General Hammond's eyes narrowed. "You know your leeway in team selection is a privilege, Colonel O'Neill. Other considerations can and do override that. If Captain Carter transfers, you will have a scientific expert to replace her offworld, whether one of the remaining team members trains to do it, you select an available recruit, or one is assigned to you."

Samantha Carter tentatively brought up her hand. "I don't plan to-"

"It was an example, Captain."

"Oh. Um, sorry."

O'Neill took a deep breath, calming himself. "And what considerations override my selection privilege to put a Russian on?"

"Political. This one came straight from the Commander-in-Chief. Now-"

There was a short knock at the door of the briefing room. All within - SG-1 and General Hammond - turned to face the door, and saw a young woman. Perhaps nineteen by human ages, trim and fit, with pale skin, reddish brown eyes, and short, somewhat shaggy red hair. Unlike the plain green uniforms worn by the soldiers of the SGC, she was dressed in a mottled greens-and-brown camouflage pattern, with a blue-and-white-striped undershirt visible at the gap in the collar. Various insignia decorated the upper portion of the uniform, including a newly-added SGC patch on the shoulder, and where the rank tended to be displayed on Tau'ri uniforms, there was a thick upward-pointing chevron, directly above a thinner one. A dark red beret capped the uniform and meshed strangely with her hair.

She slowly lowered her hand from the door, and spoke in an accented voice. "I... am not too early, yes...? I... did not wish to overhear."

General Hammond shook his head. "You're on time. Come in."

The young woman nodded sharply, stepping in and snapping to attention, bringing her right hand up to her temple in a crisp salute and holding it there as she waited for acknowledgement. "Starshina Arina Volkova, reporting as ordered, sir."

General Hammond stood, returning the salute. "Colonel O'Neill, meet your newest subordinate."

O'Neill snapped his own salute. "General..."

Arina Volkova brought her hand down from the salute and remained at attention, but Teal'c could almost feel a cringe in her even from this distance. Her tension eased slightly at his nod to her presence, but it remained strong.

"I've already heard it, Colonel. You can file a protest if you want, but we both have our orders."

"She's a kid! You can't be serious!"

Teal'c cocked his head. He supposed nineteen was young among soldiers of the Tau'ri, but he did not really grasp it intuitively - among the jaf'fa, Arina Volkova would be an experienced campaigner by now, her gender being more object than her age.

Arina Volkova's lips parted slightly before she bit in her words.

But General Hammond caught it. "Starshina?" He stumbled slightly over the rank. "Go ahead."

Her mouth worked slightly as she worded her statement - and presumably translated it from her native language - before she began. "... Colonel, my combat experience not match yours, but it exist. I enlist at age sixteen and was selected for Spetsnaz in initial tour. Second tour began last year, transferred to full Spetsnaz unit. Have seen combat, and willing to learn what you teach."

O'Neill pursed his lips. "... I still..."

General Hammond raised an eyebrow. "Your record says you enlisted at sixteen and fought in Vietnam yourself, Colonel."

O'Neill bit down. "Fine." He jerked his head to indicate the door. "Let's go to the training grounds and see what you've got, Volkova."

Arina Volkova saluted. "Yes sir."

"And you're Master Sergeant for now. We need to translate ranks so people actually know what your authority is."

"Very well, sir."

O'Neill stalked out of the room.

Daniel Jackson cleared his throat. "For what it's worth, welcome to the team. I'm Daniel Jackson."

Samantha Carter nodded. "Captain Samantha Carter."

Arina Volkova nodded to both of them. "... Spasibo za vnimanie." Teal'c supposed it was a thanks, but that was simply through tone of voice - he didn't actually know the language, though he supposed, like English, he should get to it soon. It would likely help, as her English was not the best, and he didn't know how she did his language yet. She turned on her heel, following O'Neill.

Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson traded worried looks and moved to follow the pair.

Teal'c, however, remained in his seat.

It took but a moment for General Hammond to notice him. "Yes, Teal'c?"

"I do not myself take issue with Arina Volkova." With what he was about to say, he felt he should get that out of the way. "However, I worry that her addition may compromise SG-1. I do not truly grasp O'Neill's protests, but their presence is plain." Culturally speaking, he could probably take issue with her gender, but he'd seen - and married - enough ferocious women that he really had no issues with the idea of fighting females - from there, her skills would yet be determined.

General Hammond smiled faintly. "You're saying good soldiers follow orders, but good commanders give orders their soldiers won't have trouble following."

Teal'c inclined his head.

"All right. You're a bit outside of all this, so maybe you can give some perspective, and you deserve to get it just the same. But don't pass this on to anyone else, especially not Colonel O'Neill."

Teal'c nodded once more. He would of course inform whoever he felt it necessary to inform and the man likely knew it himself, but without reason to do otherwise he would be perfectly willing to follow General Hammond's wishes.

"Just about a decade ago, Earth came out of what we called the Cold War - America and her allies, and Russia and her own, formed two opposing armed camps. There was a lot of ill-feeling, proxy wars, and overall we came damned close to an all-out war that could have shattered the entire world. I'm not really going to go into the reasons for the tension or who I thought was in the right, both sides made questionable and downright ugly moves and considering the amount of Russians coming under my command, I'd really rather not bring it all up, or for that matter poison you against your coworkers with a biased perspective."

"I understand. Alliances and wars among the goa'uld change without warning. I myself have fought alongside those I spent decades fighting. There is always tension as jaf'fa shake off years of having been told of their foe's evils and see one another as brothers in arms... but the latter always happens."

"The problem is, Colonel O'Neill was black ops. He did some of the questionable things from our side, and to do that, he had to internalize the idea of 'Russians are evil' a lot more than the average line trooper. You were easier to accept because he hasn't spent as long fighting the gould, jaffa aren't as outlined as enemies in his mind. A lot of our boys are similar, but O'Neill is the most ingrained of them, and as commander of the flagship team, he's also the example everyone looks to."

"You fear O'Neill will form the core of a group resenting your new allies."

"And because of it, the target of ill-feeling from the Russians who feel disliked. It's going to be tricky enough making sure everyone takes orders from the SGC chain of command first, but operations are going to be impossible if half my command instinctively reaches for their sidearms when they see the other half."

"Then why place such people together in a single team? Would that not bring these ill feelings to boil more frequently?"

"We're going to have cross-team operations anyway. The reason I'm putting Volkova on SG-1 is because I want it to work out. I want O'Neill to work well with a Russian team member, and I want everyone in this command to see that the flagship team is integrating smoothly."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

"Don't underestimate O'Neill. I know he sees who people are as more important than what they are - he was the first of us to accept you. I chose Volkova for that role specifically because she's the youngest and cutest of the Russian applicants that passed selection - you've already seen how her age almost instantly switched him from 'it's a damned Russian' to the protective 'she's too young'."

Teal'c tapped his cheek. "... Perhaps. Is she not also related to this 'Andrei Volkov' who I have seen on the television?" Surnames were truly useful things. He'd have to add that to his list of fads to export to the jaf'fa, along with freedom, clean water, medicine...

General Hammond chuckled, shaking his head. "Yes. That too. I don't want the daughter of a world leader dying on my watch, and putting her under O'Neill enhances the kid's lifespan expectancy quite a bit."

"... I comprehend your plan, but I am... uncertain. I believe you are correct that it will work, as I myself have seen O'Neill's nature, but you are also engendering resentment towards yourself."

"Exactly."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

"The one thing that brings people together fastest is shared ill-will against someone else. We already have the gould to do it, but a bit of bellyaching at the boss always helps."

"Will that not damage your own authority, even as it improves the team's cooperation?"

General Hammond nodded, exhaling heavily. "... My time's limited, Teal'c. I was already moving to retire. And with the political mess going on on the surface... Someone's going to take the fall for this, and I'm one of the primary options. I expect before too long I'll be removed from the SGC - whether in disgrace as I take the blame for this attack, or to go on to my retirement while a younger, more prestigious, and let's be honest, more talented, officer takes command now that the SGC is public and critical. Either way, I intend to lay as much groundwork for my successor as I can, and if that includes using myself as an unreasonable boss for people to bond over grumbling about, then that is what it includes."

Teal'c stood. "I do not wish to see you be disgraced, General Hammond, but I understand that I am powerless in this matter. Know that you are neither unreasonable nor disgraced in my eyes. You never shall be."

General Hammond smiled. "I appreciate that, Teal'c. Now go bond with your unit." He waved to the door.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet, did not allow his irritation to show as he initiated the communications device, instantly projecting his image across the millions of light years between his Beliskner's position in the Ida Galaxy and... he refused to call it the Divine Galaxy as the goa'uld demanded.

He looked out across the assembled System Lords - the interior was likely the goa'uld-neutral Harasa Station, though really the vast amounts of gold made most goa'uld facilities blur together. This wasn't all of them, of course, but it was the group presently assembled and interested in whatever had caught their attention now. Cronus, Heru'ur, Nirrti, Yu, Baal, Bastet, Kali, Morrigan, and Apophis - the last looking quite the worse for the wear, any injuries to his body removed by the sarcophagus, but the psychological damage from whatever had happened leaving him quite frazzled.

Thor's lips curled slightly. He missed being able to smile. His initial, birth body had been so capable, but after millennia of cloning, functionality was rapidly degrading. He wanted to go mountain-climbing again... "What prompts the System Lords to ask to negotiate with the Asgard?"

"You well know, you..." Apophis trailed off from his initially heated words, reason catching up with his rage and pointing out that he didn't really want to be slurring the commander of the single most powerful anti-goa'uld fleet in known space.

Not that Thor would have really minded such slurs - the mere existence and flourishing of beings such as these offended him far beyond the worst possible opinion they could hold of him. "I do not. Nor do I have time for socialization." Well, he did, but he'd be socializing with asgard, not mass-murderers, if he could help it.

"Wait/," Baal stopped him with an upraised hand. "Tau'ri. The homeworld of humans."

He cocked his head to the side. "Yes?" It had been a while since he'd checked that one out. The Asgard simply didn't have the forces free to war with the goa'uld, so they couldn't afford to be drawing attention to Midgard. A pity, as it was an interesting place - the humans were doing some quite intriguing things on their own, without influence from the Ancients or their technology. "This is not still about Ra, is it? We said almost four years ago that the goa'uld do not have special protection. Ra's demise was due solely to his own actions and the ingenuity of the Firstworlders. Our protection is not withdrawn, and they do not merit censure."

"It is that protection about which we wish to speak," Cronus noted.

Thor simply waited for them to talk. They were always most willing to do so.

"Apophis moved to reclaim the Tau'ri some weeks ago," Nirrti began.

"And was utterly crushed," Heru'ur finished, casting a smugly satisfied look at his long-time rival. Goa'uld did not naturally smile like asgard used to and humans did, they only did so when the host's presence acted up or they were attempting to socialize and manipulate. The 'smile' was a rather rare instinct among living species and goa'uld did not naturally have mouths capable of such gestures even if they had the instinct - but had Heru'ur been human rather than merely riding in one, he would have been smiling at Apophis.

"That is good to hear," Thor noted, lips twisting slightly in the closest he could do to a grin in this degraded body. He perhaps shouldn't be tweaking the goa'uld like this, but he had never been under orders to be kind to the little monsters. Polite would do, nobody in this room hated one another with anything less than the fire of a thousand suns and they all knew it.

"Hear?! You DID it!" Apophis roared, lunging from his seat and at Thor...

...'s hologram. Thor tapped a control to back up his view and projection point slightly, simply looking down at Apophis and shaking his head slightly. He really was quite angry if he'd forgotten that. "I have not been in that region of space for some time. Whatever they did to you, they did it themselves. The Asgard had no part in it."

Baal tapped a control on his seat, bringing up a hologram, which Thor studied. A ship confronting a pair of ha'tak, with light humanoid-shaped craft engaging Death Gliders in between them. Flared arrowhead, trailing back into an angular rear section, a simple and efficient shape, coloured a darkish green - either the paint brought a beneficial property, or the hull simply was that colour as on Asgard vessels, painting a ship that size added quite a lot of mass and the design seemed too practical for people who would do that. A very large ship, it was - perhaps twice the size of his own Beliskner, approximately the same as the new class ship under development back home. Maneuvering slower than the ha'tak, but there was a feeling of... force, to it, and a measured gingerness to its movement. It had far more powerful thrusters, but lacked inertial compensators to magnify their effect as Asgard and Goa'uld vessels did, if he had to guess, a hypothesis that seemed borne out by the more cautious maneuvering performed by the humanoid craft - aggressive, but taking care to avoid crossing beyond the human body's force limit, which their thrust was well capable of, while Gliders never needed to concern themselves with such things.

Though as he watched the battle unfold across the room, it was clear that technological superiourity lost to people who knew properly how to use less-advanced technology - the skill of the human-he-presumed pilots was undeniable, though it was hard to compare against the categorically poor training the goa'uld gave to jaf'fa. And the projectile weaponry... the Ancients would have called it 'primitive, but effective'. Thor would call it 'effective'.

Thor looked up. "... And?" The flared-out nose of the ship must have fooled them, it was a favoured asgard touch, gave them a better mounting for forward-fire weaponry, as well as point-defence angles over the body of the ship. But no... this was very much a human design. A natural descendant of the air and spacecraft they'd had when last he was there. However, the fact that that descendant had been born this soon... well, that one had him wondering himself, though he'd hardly admit that to goa'uld. "That is not an Asgard ship."

"They certainly could not have built it!"

Thor just looked at Apophis. "Then perhaps they found someone else who is enemy to the goa'uld. Such beings are hardly uncommon. Perhaps the Hebridans? The Tollan? The Tok'Ra?" He didn't think it was any of them... the design simply screamed 'Midgard' too loudly to his experienced eye for military hardware. He wished the list could be longer, but the goa'uld had already taken out the Gadmeer and the Ostorr, and so many others... And Rillaan... Rillaan was unknown to the goa'uld, and Thor truly hoped the Midgardians hadn't stumbled across them.

Yu snorted. "Perhaps."

Hm. Wait a moment. "It strikes me that we could go and build them whatever we felt like." Not that they would, sure he liked them but he needed to know what kind of people they were before he gave them superweapons. He really would need to drift out to Midgard the next time he had opportunity and see if he couldn't find out what was going on, and to what degree the Asgard could ethically advance their position in the galaxy now that the goa'uld cared about the First World again.

They'd advanced non-PPT worlds before when they hit the 'industrialized enough for the goa'uld to slaughter, but not enough to fend them off' point after they'd evaluated the society to confirm they wouldn't be creating a new goa'uld, though to varying degrees of success - no massive galactic threats, but no galactic threats to the goa'uld. Their improved societies had generally been unable to fend off the goa'uld in full... but they'd lasted longer, and one continued to stand, though not interested in saving other worlds. Another continued to stand, not interested in subjugating other worlds - that one especially had forced the Asgard to triple the stringency of their pre-uplift evaluations. At this time, the fact that that was the best they could do was probably Thor's single greatest regret. They needed to stop the Replicators and straighten out this galaxy.

Cronus stood. "The Protected Planets Treaty, subsection fourty-two, dictates that no world may be artificially developed by the Asgard, Thor. Your words grow dangerously close to a treaty violation."

"No protected planet. You have refused to allow the First World on the treaty in the past, and that means there is no treaty protecting them, but there are also no restrictions on what we may do for them. And you know what will happen if you attack, with or without explicit membership in the treaty." He was going to have to be very careful here. The Asgard did not have the forces to stop a concerted goa'uld strike, and if he wasn't yet sure on the idea of technological sharing, then the High Council certainly wouldn't sign off on it. The Asgard really didn't know these people either. So it was back to bluffing. The thrill he always got from this really wasn't something he was proud of - it seemed inappropriate to be enjoying himself while lives hung in the balance.

"The human race exists to serve the goa'uld." Nirrti spoke up. "The treaty recognizes that. The actions you propose go against the spirit of-"

"You may believe what you will about the spirit of the Protected Planets Treaty, goa'uld," Thor interrupted. "But the text is clear. It does not apply to the human homeworld. Unless you wish it to."

Thor attempted another grin at the bug-eyed look on the faces of the System Lords - barring Yu, Baal, and Morrigan, who all remained calm and composed.

Apophis gathered his words first. He was probably still 'first among equals' here. "That is the most foolish thing I have yet heard! Perhaps if they survived through 'just luck' as you say happened to Ra! But they defeated goa'uld vessels in open battle! No human world may advance technologically to the point where they threaten the goa'uld!"

"As determined by the goa'uld," Morrigan noted.

Thor nodded agreeably. "A fair point. I suppose we will simply have to reinforce them ourselves so that they may survive without the treaty, then." Not that they could, but the threat remained useful.

Cronus gritted his teeth. "This is extortion."

"Is it?" Thor shook his head. "These are simply our options. You may choose which you favour - whatever threat the humans, without hyperdrive, pose now, and protected from your assault by law, or whatever threat the humans, after we give them hyperdrive and improve their shields and weaponry, will pose shortly, and protected from your assault by force. The greater threat, as stated by the treaty, is up to the goa'uld to determine."

Baal tapped his cheek. "Or, destroy them now. We can, of course, do that."

"Through our forces... Can you, now?"

As they pondered that, Thor cut the connection. He didn't want to carry this bluff far enough to be caught, and he needed a carrot for these negotiations, since the stick didn't exist. For a concession to make to the goa'uld, he needed authorization from the High Council.

Midgard must not fall. It was the single largest concentration of... not of humanity, but of life, in all known space. More than half the sentient population of... everywhere... would be dead, in the best case, and that was something Thor would simply not allow. If necessary, he would go rogue as Loki had. He did not consider it likely to be necessary... but he knew himself well enough that if the High Council refused to take the measures necessary to stop such mass death, he would take them and gladly accept his own fate.

And that was the best case. If that world, with its full population, were captured, then the goa'uld would rapidly become large enough to battle the Asgard even if they were not distracted by the Replicators. With such numbers added to their existing technologies... both galaxies would fall, whether to the goa'uld or the Replicators...

Midgard must not fall.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Samantha Carter glanced across the locker room at Arina as the Russian girl changed, a little jealous. Not of her looks, though she was pretty enough, Sam certainly wasn't going to feel threatened by a nineteen-year-old.

Of her fitness. That compact body of hers was very, very strong, and spectacularly fast - the girl had consistently outrun Teal'c (though she couldn't match his pure strength), and Sam was pretty sure Arina had lasted five times longer in O'Neill's 'physical exam for the new recruits' than Sam herself had. If Colonel O'Neill was going to consider Arina's performance insufficient for the SG-1 slot, he'd have to boot Sam and Daniel off too.

Speaking of which. "Hey... Volkova."

Arina stilled halfway through pulling her replacement... stripy shirt thing... on, looking back over her shoulder. "Ma'am?"

Sam frowned, shaking her head. "You don't need to stand on the ceremony. This command, and Colonel O'Neill especially, are pretty loose."

The redhead's eyebrow rose, but her expression otherwise remained blank.

"That's actually what I wanted to get at." Sam sighed slightly, looking at the locker. "Look... Colonel O'Neill probably didn't come off at his best to you, but he's really not a jerk. He's just... he doesn't like losing control over his team. He wants to choose the people he has to trust his back to." Her mind flashed back to O'Neill's initial resistance to her membership on the offworld team, and a bit of embarrassment at her assumption it had had to do with gender - she hadn't thought she'd let the 'boys club' atmosphere of the military and restrictions from women in combat roles get to her that much, but... 'reproductive organs on the inside instead of the outside'? Working with SG-1 had really helped her relax and just feel like one of the troopers.

Maybe that was why she felt like helping out Arina - not really gender solidarity, though she wouldn't really mind not being the only woman in the team anymore (or, for that matter, not being the youngest anymore). But just because she knew what it was like getting rejected by O'Neill, and wanted the younger woman to know it'd get better.

Arina nodded, pulling the striped shirt the rest of the way down over her body. "Because I chose to be assigned under commander who hates me."

Wow. The girl had a talent for keeping her voice level even when the context made it obvious as sarcasm. "Look, he doesn't hate you, Volkova. He doesn't even know you."

Arina reached for her camouflage outer jacket, beginning to bring it on. "Knowing not prerequisite to hate, unless you forget almost all war ever. He hate idea of me. Russian, too young... gender not issue, which actually surprising - I heard bad things about American military in that respect. Apologize for presumption."

Sam winced. "Your presumption isn't honestly wrong. The SGC's just a better command like that, and Colonel O'Neill in particular. He really doesn't care what you are, just who you are. Just give him time to see who you are."

Arina adjusted the camouflage jacket as she finished bringing it on, and reached for her red beret. "We see. Ugh. We will see. Know I got that wrong. Hope you right. Would be nice. Isn't necessary. I understand - Colonel spent thirty years training to kill me. Not surprising he dislike. I only avoid returning the feeling by being too young for Cold War. Not worst military environment." She settled the beret over her red hair. "Dedovschina true bullshit."

Samantha considered trying further to convince her, but... she suspected she'd gotten as far as she would. ... Wait a minute. "Wait a second! You don't even have perfect English down, but you learned the swear words?"

Arina blinked, and shrugged. "I soldier."

Sam buried her face in her hands, chuckling. "Come on, I'll show you the cafeteria. You're probably hungry after the workout O'Neill put you through, I know I am and I was just on the sidelines."

Arina nodded, falling in beside Samantha as the two women headed out of the locker room.

"Oh... um, you used a word I don't know. What's... dedovchina?" She knew she'd mangled the word, hopefully it got the idea across...

"Oh! Closest translation... um... 'rule of grandfathers'. Treatment of earlier-service conscripts by later. You know, use newer for chores, humiliation, physical violence." She didn't elaborate further.

"Ah... the word over here is 'hazing' - initiation ritual abuse, right?" Sam remembered hearing that was particularly bad in Russia.

"Essentially. Was doubly unpopular, kontraktniki considered mercenaries, but mostly trailed off by second year. Completely gone in third. Colonel O'Neill less bastard than dedy and actually have excuse, can handle conditions."

Kontraktniki... contract soldiers, people who willingly enlisted instead of conscription? Sam kind of lacked a whole lot of the cultural or linguistic context for this conversation. "This one'll trail off soon enough."

"We will see."

Rather than go back into circles about this, Sam indicated the cafeteria... and was about to step in when the facility shook, as if under an earthquake.

Arina's balance didn't waver, but she blinked. "What is that?"

Sam frowned, and gestured for the girl to follow her, heading down the hall - she'd need to grab one of the elevators. "I doubt it's a natural earthquake. We had another one of these a few hours ago, not too long before you arrived. It's gate static - the Stargate vibrates heavily when two are used in the same stellar region."

Arina nodded, settling in behind her superiour officer. "I read reports... this 'Shadow Mirror' took gate from Apophis ship, yes?"

"It's probably them. They did seem interested in learning about it, and it came with a DHD so they only have to push buttons." The elevator arrived, and Sam opened it with a slash of her ID card through the reader, stepped in, and nodded to Daniel as Arina stepped in behind her. "Coming down to check it out?"

Daniel smiled, fixing his glasses. "Yeah. Who knows, they might need some language help." The elevator doors closed, and it began heading down again.

Sam chuckled, shaking her head. "Liar. You just want to watch."

"Caught me."

"We... allowed?" Arina queried. "Wouldn't control room clog if everyone in base come down to watch?"

Daniel grinned, clapping a hand on the slim girl's shoulder. "The privileges of prestige. You, as part of the flagship explorer team, get to have a place in the control room pretty much whenever."

Sam nodded. "It's mostly because Colonel O'Neill is the second-in-command of the base, I'm considered the science officer, Daniel knows half the languages ever spoken by human lips, and Teal'c is our expert on the goa'uld - you get the benefits, though."

"If say so..."

The elevator reached the control room level with a 'ping', and as the doors opened, all three of them stepped out, moving towards the control room.

The gate technician... Sam really should get around to learning the guy's name one of these days... spoke over the intercom. "Unauthorized offworld activation."

Sam sighed heavily. "This is going to get really nerve-wracking if they don't stop soon."

"Wormhole closed."

Daniel glanced at Samantha. "... Think they're just messing with us?"

"I have no idea."

"... Unauthorized offworld activation."

"... Yes."

They reached the control room, stepping in just in time to see through the window as the gate shut down again, the technician announcing its shutdown. Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c were already there, as was General Hammond, and all of them acknowledged the arrival of the girls and geeks of SG-1 with nods.

Colonel O'Neill shook his head. "This is getting annoying. We can't even use the gate until it stops sending MALPs to that ship."

They'd been tossing the things through to Alpha Site and then letting the Alpha Teams try and send the MALPs back home to see where they ended up - it had been part of General Hammond's retrieval plan for Doctor Fraiser's team, and though everyone had been returned before he got permission for it, they were still using it to explore the current status of Earth's gate. Every MALP had ended up onboard Shangri-La's gate, and been immediately picked up and dragged to a locked room. They were apparently getting a little collection over there.

Samantha nodded, moving to a console to check the readings picked up off the gate. "Mm... a lot of these match what we got this morning. It definitely looks like another in-system gate is being used."

The chevrons lit up once more, and a faint blue light played through the still-closed iris. "Unscheduled offworld activation," the technician announced, rubbing his throat.

There was a thump against the iris. Sam frowned, glancing at the display. "Something just tried to come through. And... wait a second." She tabbed to another display. "Right now, and the last two activations, we received a low-level, deeply scrambled signal through the gate."

General Hammond's cheek twitched, and he leaned over to the communications console, setting up a multi-band transmission. "This is General Hammond of Stargate Command. I would very much appreciate if whoever's on the other end of that would stop and explain themselves."

The console lit up with the response, nearly instantly. "Ah, sorry about that. This is Specialist Alex Walther, Shadow Mirror. We were just running some gate ops tests." Powerful, rich voice, with a Canadian accent...

Walther... wasn't that the guy Doctor Fraiser had mentioned?

Colonel O'Neill coughed into his hand. "Could ya please stop taunting us with how your gate's preventing ours from working?"

"Actually, that's what we were working on. It seems being hooked up to a DHD makes our gate the Earth primary. We've unhooked it and you're the primary again. Gates go here now. We were going to contact you after we'd run a few more experiments to fully confirm it."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Why would you devote effort to giving the gate to another?"

"Why not? We certainly don't have any real benefit from cutting you off, and your explorer corps continuing to work decreases the odds of another alien battlegroup trying to wipe out the planet."

"You wish to protect the Tau'ri?"

"The whonow?"

General Hammond and the experienced members of SG-1 traded looks - Arina just looked a bit confused by what they'd all obviously noticed.

Daniel leaned over to the comm mike. "'Tau'ri' is the goa'uld word for Earth, and its inhabitants. It means the people who threw off alien rule for the first and only time. We are the only enemies of the goa'uld that we know of... though clearly you are as well."

"Ah, gotcha. Well then... no. I do not wish to protect the Tau'ri. I wish to protect everyone. I am Tau'ri. I'm cleared to say that much."

General Hammond nodded. "We've been bouncing that theory... but you can't be from Earth. Earth's technology is nowhere near as advanced as yours."

"So, what, are you from the future or something?" O'Neill cut to the chase.

There was silence for a moment. "... Yes and no. We're not from this future."

"An alternate reality, further ahead?" Daniel queried.

"As far as we've been able to figure. The divergence point looks like it was earlier, though, so far as we know we've had no Stargate or 1998 CE alien invasion."

"So... why are you here?"

"I'm not cleared to say that much."

"What's your world like?"

"You don't want to visit."

"Running? Your people have said your ships are arks."

"Maybe."

Colonel O'Neill put a hand on Daniel's shoulder, shaking his head. "Forget it, he isn't saying anything he doesn't want to. Let's move on to the 'ships' part, as in plural? How many do you have, and where?"

"... Seriously?"

"Had to try."

"What are your intentions here?" General Hammond asked.

"Two. First, the safety and security of the people of Earth, and anyone else we find that merits the help. Second, building up our own forces - you've probably seen Outer Heaven on telescopes."

"To a degree. We know your ship is in the asteroid belt. Are you building a base out there?"

"I don't really need to answer that one, do I?"

"Simply confirming." General Hammond turned to SG-1. "Any other questions any of you have in mind?"

Sam nodded, leaning over to the comm. "What was that teleportation system you used?"

"System XN. It's how we got here and now as well. I know you want to know how it works, but you wouldn't tell me if I asked you about the gate, would you?"

Samantha shook her head. "Not until authorized. I wouldn't want to hand over potentially dangerous information to someone I don't even really know."

"Then you understand," Walther noted.

Sam sighed. "I guess I do. Maybe later..."

"Why haven't you really opened up contact with Earth yet?" Daniel's question.

"Political conditions change, and you're already in a state of flux after the revelation of alien threats and our own presence. Any promise a soldier makes, a politician can turn into a lie. Any promise a politician makes, the next politician can betray. Shadow Mirror will not provide information that could put our objectives at risk until conditions have at least partially stabilized and we can feel reasonably assured that nobody will use that information against us. To a degree, we trust you, as individuals. But you're members of an organization, and at this point we have no way of knowing what other members will do with any information we provide."

O'Neill winced. "Okay, I see what you mean. We don't have the best record on that."

"Mm. Don't take blame for it, we've inherited that record ourselves and you're unlikely to have had part in it."

O'Neill grinned. "So what are the odds of technology exchange? I want one of those 'Gespensts'."

"As far as military technology, what I just said applies. You get stuff when we can be reasonably sure it's not going to bite us in the back. If we can be reasonably sure, you will get it, we're here to benefit Earth in the first place. For now, keep an eye on the patent office, we're going to be passing some starters to get your industry practiced, and medicines to reduce sickness in the third world... that kind of thing. I didn't actually invent it, but do pass the royalties on to my account anyway, since we are giving this to you, and it will be useful to participate in your economy."

General Hammond frowned. "... You have an account?"

"You seriously think 20th-century computer security can withstand 22nd-century computers? Well, if we can be sure it doesn't come back to haunt us, it will before long, but not just yet. Try to actually use what we've got - I can assure you that it works, but it's not going to do anything if the big companies shut it out because they've been making money just fine the old way."

"Those smaller companies that will be trying your new methods... they'll be yours, won't they? Dummy corporations?"

"Some. There are always people willing to try new things, so I'm sure there'll be local groups doing it. Really, all I'm asking is to make sure that if a company makes a better product - as defined by both price and effect and all - that you make sure they don't get shut out by the ones already there simply because they lack inertia."

"I expect that will be happening anyway. We can't afford to slow down our pace of technical development now that we're at war. I don't exactly have authority in that regard anyway."

"Fair enough. Oh, though we are willing to transfer information in exchange for information of equal value. If you get something good - especially salvaged alien technology - then we'll be willing to give you a fair exchange for the fruits of your research. No point doubling up and re-researching the wheel. This also applies to offworld intelligence."

General Hammond raised an eyebrow. "I'll keep that in mind, but I don't expect I'll have the authority to accept."

"Of course, this is to be passed on to your superiours."

"So," O'Neill began. "What does all this mean in terms of the gate?"

"You'll have to ask your politicians about that. Our own gate will be detached from the DHD unless we are actively sending something through - even then, we might end up building an emulator that doesn't put us as priority, like you have. Our teams will return by jumping the gate stream to the next gate from the primary."

"You mean the power surge method?" Sam queried.

"Yes, we've just confirmed that it works. So your gate will remain primary. Traffic will default to your facility, unless specially diverted to ours. You may resume gate operations whenever you feel like."

"Unless you're sending a team through," General Hammond pointed out.

"Well, we're not shutting it down. We'll take steps to minimize interference with your own operations... Oh, right. Just a second."

Sam glanced at her console as a transmission came in. "He's sending a code."

"Rig your GDOs to double-transmit. While your returning teams should open up radio contact first to make sure they're returning to the right facility, if you're bugging out in a hurry, there's not exactly going to be time. The code I've sent you will identify SGC personnel to the Shadow Mirror gate crews. We're going to be installing our own iris soon, and it would just get... awkward for all concerned if your evacuating personnel splatted on our windshield."

"That is... appreciated. I will see if we can return the favour."

"Oh, and O'Neill told me to tell you that you can also use our access code to drop by for a visit if you feel like it. And she also told me to pass on Miss Grace's regards for Doctor Jackson, for some reason... no idea why Miss Grace didn't tell me herself if she wanted the message passed..." he mumbled.

"Ah... um... thank you?"

Colonel O'Neill paused. "Hey, about that name..." General Hammond's expression on their debriefing had really been something to see...

"Yes, we ran a genetic test. It's likely. Don't ask me the details, even she doesn't intimately know hundred-and-fifty-years-old family history, and she certainly hasn't told me."

O'Neill frowned, and nodded.

"Let me just pass you to Mizrahi for a minute. She's our linguist, but we only know Coptic, and the jaffa language isn't directly analogous to it, so we'd appreciate if you could give us a sense of how it works now."

Daniel looked to General Hammond.

Hammond frowned, and nodded. "... Go ahead. Language information isn't classified."

"Ah, and we'll open up contact again in a few hours. Any answers you have by then would be appreciated, but either way, we're going to be sending your probes back, unless you're not given authorization to open the iris and accept them. The things are probably fairly expensive for you. Now... here's Mizrahi."

A young girl's voice came over, speaking... Sam couldn't quite identify what she was saying. It sounded like the Ancient Egyptian descendant spoken out in the galaxy, but not quite.

Daniel obviously got it, as he responded in 'standard' - what was that language even called? "Okay, pronunciation and word structure has shifted a little over time, like this."

Sam, General Hammond, and O'Neill drifted to the back of the room, whispering to not be caught on the radio as the two linguists spoke, with Teal'c chiming in to assist - Arina seemed to stand off to the side, not quite sure of which group to go with. "She sounds far too young," Samantha noted. "By voice I'd say... maybe sixteen at most?"

Colonel O'Neill nodded. "And Grace looked way too experienced to be eighteen... you thinking these Shadow Mirror people are using child soldiers?"

General Hammond frowned, shaking his head. "Don't jump to conclusions. We're talking about people who claim to be from the 22nd century, it could just be life-extension treatments that make them seem younger. Keep an eye on it, but don't assume. For now, once our guests sign off, we'll get to work on bringing back our Alpha Team and pass on what we have up the chain of command... I'm going to need to head off-base before too long, so let's get this done while I'm here."

Sam nodded. "Yes sir."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Doctor Lemon Browning floated into the bridge, pushing off the doorway with a hand to approach her seat. "Have you figured out where we are yet?"

Primera Black nodded from her crew station, and her voice synthesizer gave words to her response: "I think so." Lemon's newly developed ones still weren't perfect, but they at least weren't as patently disturbing as the original stilted robotic voices, and they let mutes like Primera live a fairly normal life. She keyed in commands, and a planet map drew itself out on Lemon's console. "Long range analysis indicates we are in the Sol System, the sun and planets are in appropriate positions, as well as constellation analysis. We are out near the orbital range of Pluto. The planet itself is on the other side of the system."

Lemon nodded, levering herself into her seat and buckling in. "I suppose that explains why we haven't had much response on Flash yet. How have the repairs gone?"

"Well," William Black - Primera's elder brother - responded from his own station. "Wonderland is pretty close to working order. And Sierra-"

"Ah, Lemon, my dear, where were you?" the man's voice came over the radio from the ship nestled alongside Wonderland - Sierra de la Plata.

Lemon rolled her eyes. "I was checking on W-15, Jail." The man insisted on that nickname - his proper name was Doctor Jacob Lauro - 'JL' - Scaglietti, but... Well, Lemon called things what they called themselves, not what an outside viewer thought they should be.

"Ahhhh, wonderful. How is he doing?"

Lemon waved a hand, though he couldn't see it. "Same as before. The psychological imprint we used to make his mind doesn't stabilize easily. The baseline was a very devoted, duty-bound man, and we'll need to find him an ideal to dedicate himself to or he can be expected to behave erratically."

"I really don't understand why you didn't just go whole cloth on his psyche like we did the others. They are all essentially stable, other than Tredieci."

Lemon's eyebrow twitched. "You can guess. I'm not explaining it to you. And at least stop using your Italian nicknames on official forms, not everyone knows them." She at least knew them from sheer exposure to Scaglietti - 'Tredieci' was W-13, one of the more experimental of the W-Numbers.

"Oh now? I was expecting you to say it would enable us to resurrect our fallen soldiers. Is it, perhaps, something personal? Hmmmm, 'Lemon'?"

"You're going to shut up now."

Scaglietti laughed. "Of course, of course. Your father really wasn't one of the Federation's finest, after all..."

Targeting data scrolled across Lemon's console, and she blinked, looking across the bridge at Primera Black. "Primera!"

Scaglietti chuckled. "Ahhh, loyalty. Very well, I'll stop."

The Wonderland's guns went silent.

"Primera, I appreciate the consideration, but we really shouldn't threaten to shoot our comrades. There are other people aboard that ship."

Her voice synthesizer spoke: "I was not going to. It was to communicate a point."

Lemon rubbed her temples. "I would dock your pay for that stunt if we had any money. Jesiah, please d..." She paused, and turned from the Wonderland's captain to Primera's brother. "William, please discipline her for that once this shift ends."

Jesiah Black snickered. Yes, he would, relying on that man to maintain discipline was... not the most workable idea.

"So, Lemon. You're in command for now, what shall we do?" Scaglietti queried. "We're something approaching fourty astronomical units from Earth, and it has been ten hours since our arrival."

Lemon's eyes flicked upward for a moment as she calculated. "We'll hold position for another fifty hours or so. It takes light speed and radio messages seven hours to reach the sun from this position, and the other missing ships could be anywhere in the system. It could be thirty hours from our initial Flash to the time we get a first response, and it will be more difficult to make contact if we're not in the same position. Keep repairs going. If we pass fifty hours from here, we can assume we won't receive a response, and begin accelerating towards Earth."

"Mm... and what of the other units in the Lykeios-2 jump group?"

"... I couldn't say. We expected a degree of instability in our travel. Doctors Radom and Hamill may be lost. As may Walther and O'Neill from the Aguieus group."

"You at least have Radom's final project aboard, I should hope?"

"I have the Shrike. As long as you have the Raptor, their work can be completed in their stead." And Lemon was seriously considering finding whatever genius had failed to put the ATX mastermind's latest project data aboard all of the ships and sticking a rifle in his face. The fact that it had been a rush and an emergency not only did not excuse slipping up like that, but it made it even worse. As it was, Lemon was going to need to reverse-engineer what had thus far been done on the prototypes before development could continue - at least she'd had some role in the project beforehand, but they needed to get the blueprints and construction data reassembled before they could continue. If they were missing parts, they'd need to see if the machines existed in this world and seize them to redevelop from, and that would be worth a whole other headache.

She could hear Scaglietti's smile. "The Falcon... let me see..." He hummed to himself, making a huge production and theatrical show of the search. Lemon knew he'd already checked, but didn't consider it a big enough deal to call him on it. "Ahah! I do!"

"Good. Go check on the rest." And leave her alone... he was an excellent scientist, and he could be honestly fun to be around, but only in limited doses.

"By your command, my dear!" The link cut.

Lemon gnawed on her upper lip, looking out at the blackness of space - the sun was faintly visible in the distance, but there was really nothing else out here. She really hoped they got something within fifty hours. Anything. A million people had left TLI, both soldiers and refugees, and the idea of that many people lost without a trace was terrifying in and of itself. But Lemon had been the primary worker on System XN - it was because of her that the hundred thousand people aboard Wonderland and Sierra had made it out alive before the Beowulves slaughtered them. Having failed the other nine hundred thousand... she didn't know if she could bear that. She'd met some of those people - she had personally promised Selain Meneth safety aboard the Avalon. And... Axel.

Her upper lip split under her teeth, spilling a bit of blood into her mouth. Lord, I'm still a mess, aren't I? She sort of wanted to see if Excellen Browning lived in this world. See how things had turned out. Maybe seeing how she could have ended up would help her move forward.

Or maybe seeing how she should have ended up would send her right back to the existential angst that she'd only come out of after changing her name and meeting Axel. But she just wanted an answer so she could stop moping over it. At least she could be depressive about what was actually going on in her mind instead of what might happen in her mind.

But she really hoped Axel was all right. She really shouldn't have left without him... but she knew he wouldn't have gone until he was sure they'd escaped safely. And she... Beowulf was complicated. Axel would need to be able to fight freely without having to worry about people in the firing line if he were going to take him. And... Lemon was afraid of looking at Beowulf. He brought back strange thoughts in her head. Someone else's thoughts... maybe.

Lemon shook her head, unbuckling and moving from her seat. She wanted to be doing something. Too much time to think - or at least, to think about 'things' rather than a project - and she'd turn herself into a mess.

Then a crackling sphere of multicoloured light blossomed out of nothing in front of them.

William Black's eyes widened, and he whistled. "Gravity and electrostatic wave patterns detected! Comparing to profile... XN Aguieus!"

"Hoo-yah!" Jesiah declared with his characteristic excitement.

Lemon's lips curled into a slight smile. "Contact Sierra de la Plata and go to Ready 1 status. We'll relax once we get confirmation, but just because it looks like Aguieus doesn't mean it's Colonel Mauser." She pushed back to her seat and buckled back in.

The Wonderland and Sierra de la Plata nosed down slightly, gun batteries and missiles locking onto the dimensional distortion in front of them, hangars sliding just slightly open - not exposing the whole area, but just the catapult at the rear to allow them to launch.

And the sphere snapped out of existence, revealing a third, identical ship, its own weapon batteries up and ready, with PTs and fighters arrayed carefully around it in a barrier formation.

"Receiving transmission," Primera stated, feeding it to a side screen.

A familiar, sharp-featured face appeared on that screen, long green hair spilling down his back, and circlet in place. "I am given to understand that I know you."

Lemon's own console lit up as Vindel Mauser's circlet transmitted a brainwave pattern... matched the one she had on profile. She transmitted her own as the ships exchanged more conventional codes. After what had been happening with the Beowulves, brainwave identification had become a Shadow Mirror standard - just because you were there and looked the same, same fingerprints, retinal pattern match, matched the DNA, and you had the codes... it didn't mean your mind was your own.

Lemon smiled, keying up the camera to transmit her own image. "Well, I know you. It's good to see you, Vindel."

Vindel nodded. "And you, Lemon. It's good to finally have some good news."

"The others? ... Axel?"

"I am sorry. Nothing yet."

"... I see."

Vindel took a deep breath. "We have a base under assembly in the asteroid belt. I will transmit its location. Have your ships calculate a course to it - it should take about twenty days for them to arrive at full regular thrust, but Walther tells me he doesn't want to risk carrying much more than one ship with System XN just yet."

Lemon nodded to Primera, and the girl set to work. "I suppose you came out yourself since System XN is faster than radio transmission?"

"Yes, and it gave us an opportunity to run System XN through a bit of a shakedown. It seems to be fairly stable within its current load."

The Wonderland and Sierra de la Plata turned onto their new course - not directly towards the asteroid belt facility the label called 'Outer Heaven', but on an intercept course, where gravity and Outer Heaven's own orbital motion would carry the two ships to the same place at the same time, twenty days from now. And slowly began accelerating. They'd be a bit low on fuel after a full month's worth of full standard thrust, but Lemon was sure Shangri-La would have stocks ready for them.

Shangri-La began a stately turn, moving to match the pace and acceleration of the other two ships.

Vindel glanced down, probably at his D-Con. "While we're getting under way, assemble a few things and people to bring aboard Shangri-La. I want to get to work as soon as possible on a number of projects, and most of the work is on Shangri-La right now."

Lemon raised an eyebrow. "What do you need?"

"You and your team. Scaglietti and his. Your Zuvorg translator emulation project - we've got some use for it now." He ignored Lemon's smirk. This really was the best job she'd ever had. "The ATX Killer prototypes - I don't want to be facing Mark IIIs before we finish those. And the materials and data for Project Hyperion. Once Shangri-La is back at Outer Heaven, I'll come out here without the ship and begin jumping Wonderland and Sierra closer. O'Neill tells me that could shave the transit time down to a day or two, but I want the critical components in place first, in the event something goes wrong and we end up waiting a month of travel time."

Lemon frowned. "What's going on? Project Hyperion is a lot more iffy than just finding Helios."

"Yes, it is. When Helios is in the same universe. We missed."

... She'd expected a somewhat less anticlimactic resolution to her worries and thoughts about Excellen. "You're going to have to fill me in on the details."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

[Pale Wolf]

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Jack O'Neill was, frankly, just glad to be out the gate by now. It'd been weeks since they'd done anything other than training and he was getting stir-crazy. Much more training and they'd start carving their edge off instead of honing it.

Sure, he had a Russian kid at his side, and her alternate uniform and beret made her stand out quite distinctly, but honestly, she was at least quiet and he was more sure she wouldn't foul up in the first combat situation than he had been of Carter or Daniel. Not sure of course, but he was self-aware enough to remember that Carter and Daniel had passed out of his basic training at a lower level than Volkova had entered it. So if she shot him in the back it was more likely to be a betrayal than an accident.

Yay for progress?

Russian aside, though, at least he was offworld. Things were getting annoying back home - President Nichol was sucking up calls for his impeachment, and whole swathes of new people, many of them Russian, were getting underfoot and settled in back on base. The SGC had doubled in size in the last month alone. Not to mention the minor riots and tourist harassment still running, though those at least were trailing off now that the President was getting blasted.

Jack really wasn't too sure what to think about the President sucking it up. He didn't really like watching the guy get hit for what had happened, but the President had screwed up, and hard.

Jack had plenty of time to think about it, though. The meatheads weren't really necessary on this first mission out the gate - reopening contact with Nasya. This was geekland - the Nasyans were helping Carter and SG-4 set up a research facility of some kind, and Daniel was Danieling up more stories about Nasyan history and culture. So he was mostly standing back and talking with Teal'c and a few interested Nasyans.

Volkova was standing beside him, whispering something to herself - if Jack strained, he could hear her repeating sections of the conversation, trying to work on her galactic, he supposed. He shook his head. She really had overpacked - she was carrying a rather large backpack, with what looked like a goddamn bundle of tent poles sticking up and down along its side, and while she was handling the weight well, it couldn't be comfortable for long periods. If this had been an actual exploration mission instead of a milk run to break in the new recruit, he'd have gutted her pack down to something easily carriable, but since it was a milk run, he was just going to leave her to carry it for hours of walking, talking, and work, and nurse the muscle cramps tonight - let her body learn why SG teams packed light. He wasn't going to complain about the hand shovel she had dangling at her right leg, though - he knew that one was non-negotiable for Spetsnaz.

Not a bad choice of weapon, though - pistol grip, reverse-canted forward grip, a thin rod of a side-folding stock, and a hauntingly-familiar Russian-style banana-curved magazine marked it as a Hungarian-made AMD-65, their own equivalent of the modernized AK-47. He'd traded shots with people using it before - also wearing crimson berets like Volkova, so he suspected she was from the same unit. It wasn't the most overpoweringly accurate weapon out there, but it was light, easy to bring to bear, and with a hard-hitting cartridge, for an assault rifle. The MP-5 he was using was lighter and easier to carry on long missions (by about a tenth of a kilogram), but on the other hand, there was absolutely no comparing the cartridges - it took bursts from the MP-5 to take down jaffa, sometimes very long bursts, while a properly-loaded AMD-65 could probably do it with single shots. If she felt like hauling around a heavier weapon offworld, well, it was her responsibility and if she could handle the weight, he wouldn't mind the firepower added to the squad - not to mention that she was trained and familiar with her weapon, not an MP-5. But she was going to have to tune her load, because she was carrying way too much right now.

He was still trying to convince the brass to switch the SGC's stocks to PDWs, or at least carbines - something light, easy to carry and use, with half-decent armour-piercing capabilities. They'd just tossed explorer teams MP-5s out of the military police armoury. Probably be another three years before they cut all the red tape and finally got the guns he'd asked for back in the first month... He was a career soldier and didn't really want to be anything else, but he knew the Pentagon. There were probably still debates running about getting something American-made, despite the fact that the US didn't actually make anything in the battle niche SG explorer teams needed and the MP-5 they were already using were German... He actually kind of hoped Volkova did well simply so he could request AMD-65s to replace the MP-5s - there was no way the US personnel would actually be issued them, but the idea of buying Russian (Hungarian) might light a fire under the bean counter's asses. Maybe even start recommending SG members buy with their own money if nothing materialized soon...

Of course, Teal'c was still satisfied with his staff weapon.

"Hey, T, been meaning to ask ya."

The looming jaffa raised an eyebrow.

"Why the staff?"

The eyebrow rose.

Jack shrugged. "I've seen you on the range and the training ground. You seemed to be using our weapons just fine, and you've said you like 'em... so why the staff? I mean, no offence, but they're unwieldy as hell, I'd consider shooting anyone who made me use those things."

Teal'c nodded solemnly. "I intend to. With it."

"Hah?"

"I served the goa'uld with a staff weapon. I will destroy them with a staff weapon. And then I will use whatever weapon I please - as will all jaf'fa."

Jack hummed. "Well, good luck on that." Not really much else to say. Jack was special forces, his philosophy was that the best weapon for the man was the one he felt right having in his hands, so he certainly wasn't going to press anything.

Volkova spoke up from beside Jack. "... Why?" Still a bit of an accent on her galactic.

Teal'c cocked his head. "Why do I wish to destroy the goa'uld and free my people?"

Volkova shook her head. "Nyet... Why you serve?"

Teal'c's eyes widened, and Jack could see him swallowing.

"Oy, watch it Volkova," Jack interrupted. "He's been in a damn bad situation for a long time and he doesn't need you badgering him 'cause your country got bombed once."

She suddenly turned a borderline-murderous glare on him, biting down hard enough that if anything had been in her mouth it would be snapped in half.

Shit. Jack had been afraid she'd signed up for the 'coolness' factor of shooting at aliens, but it was worse. It was personal, like it was for Daniel and Teal'c, and he'd just stepped on it. Just the same... he returned the glare degree for degree. "Yes, Master Sergeant?"

She averted her gaze. "... Apologies. Not... not skilled in getting point across. Did not intend insult."

"What was your intent?" Teal'c rumbled.

"... To understand. Why they serve. What they trying to accomplish. Why they willing to murder thousands."

Teal'c took a deep breath. "... The jaf'fa are not an evil people, Arina Volkova. We have been brought up from birth to believe that the goa'uld are gods. That they must be served - that it is not merely a worthy use for a life, but the only worthy use for a life."

Volkova's expression looked about as befuddled as if Teal'c had said the jaf'fa served the goa'uld because a divine albino lemur named Jerry had commanded it.

Jack snickered. "Atheist?"

Volkova blinked. "Nyet. Or... yes. By default. Never thought about enough to care. Was never an issue."

"Well, it is an issue for jaffa. They have to think about it every day, because they have their god screaming in their face like a drill sergeant, and they've been told every day what their answer should be. It ain't easy to think of your own answer to ethical issues when you've already got one to default to and everyone around you saying the same - whether or not they actually think it themselves." Frankly, Jack didn't know if he'd have been able to develop his own sense of morality as Teal'c had in conditions like that.

Teal'c nodded. "An appropriate summation."

Her brow scrunched up in thought. "... I suppose I fortunate. I... understand theory, but not quite grasp intuitively."

Jack nodded. "Like a Canadian with an air conditioner."

Both Teal'c and Volkova looked at him with identical 'I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about' expressions.

He grinned. "Say you're in a warm climate like the tropics. You'll need to turn on air conditioning to stay comfortable." At their nods of 'understanding you so far', he continued. "But Canada's really, really cold. Canadians just aren't used to thinking of heat as something they need to get rid of. While a Canadian'll know it's uncomfortably hot, and knows about the air conditioning, she won't turn it on as a matter of course whenever she steps into a room - it can take her half an hour to realize why she's too hot and what she can do about it." He was speaking from experience here - the issue had come up five times on missions he'd done alongside Canucks. Three of those were all the same person, too... "You know it, but you don't feel it. You get me?"

Teal'c and Volkova traded looks, turned back to him, and chorused, "If you say so."

"Bah."

"I would be honored to ask you something." The reason the unfamiliar female voice caught Jack's attention wasn't just because of the strange choice of wording. There was also the fact that she was speaking English offworld.

He turned, wide-eyed, to face her, and while he was sure Teal'c and Volkova did similarly, he was too gobsmacked to look at them. The speaker was a tall, curvy, well-formed woman, dressed in the rough-sewn dull-coloured clothing of the Nasyan villagers, but lacking the patterned tattoos on the cheeks. Shoulder-length, neatly-ordered hair of a pale, almost greenish-looking blonde, and green eyes. "Uh... go ahead?"

The woman nodded. "Is you are American?"

Jack licked his lips as he parsed that. "... Yeah. What I'm wondering is how you know that. Kinda on the wrong planet to." The woman's English really wasn't the best.

One of the Nasyans - a man with shortish hair decorated with beads and a cap over top of it... Jack thought his name was Quinta... leaned over, speaking in 'galactic': "Do you know Lamia? Is she from your world?"

Teal'c shook his head. "That is what we wish to determine. Who is this?"

The woman - Lamia, Jack presumed - curtsied. "I am she who appeared on this world, and is the Lamia Loveless." The fact that he could partially understand that sort of disturbed Jack. An irritated expression drifted across her face before it returned to calm neutrality. She obviously knew how bad she was at this language. Making Volkova look skilled...

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Appeared on this world?"

Loveless nodded calmly. "I was is arrived approximation three months ago..." She took a breath, attempting to speak again. "I unknowing how... stars did not look as was from Earth... Nasyans sheltered she who..." She trailed off, giving up.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Kidnapped by the gould?"

Loveless shook her head. "Lamia Loveless did not unsee them. I am uncertain."

"... You mean didn't see them."

She nodded. "The chain of events is unclarity."

Jack hummed to himself. "All right, Teal'c, get back to the gate and make a call for home. Tell them to look up 'Lamia Loveless', and that we're gonna be taking a poor little lost soul back to Earth when we head home." He tried to get the rest of the message through with his eyes. He certainly wasn't trusting this woman off just what she'd said, but if people were scattering offworld from Earth even in the modern era, that really needed investigating, and they deserved to go back home. Hopefully a check of census records, medical check, etcetera could reveal whether they'd want to welcome her with open arms, or open cuffs. He didn't really like having to make this kind of decision when General Hammond was off-base, but that was just the way it'd developed.

Teal'c nodded after meeting Jack's eyes for a little while, and made his way across the beach to the Stargate, winding through the wagons the Nasyans had brought to help the crews, and the half-built huts that made up the first iteration of the 'facility' (they were so getting better later). They weren't building their research camp that far from where the gate sat on the shore of a placid lake - with utterly Canadian looking mountains and forests in the distance - so it didn't take long before he was at the DHD and 'thunking' the symbols for Earth.

As Teal'c dialed, Jack's ears twitched. There was an odd howling sound, faint in the distance... He turned to face it, and swore. "Death gliders!"

Everyone in earshot - Teal'c, Volkova, Loveless, Quinta, as well as Carter, Daniel, and some of the members of SG-4 - instantly turned to look at him, and then followed where his finger pointed. At the two rapidly approaching gull-winged shapes - goa'uld Death Gliders.

Orange bolts began firing from the cannons slung under the middle of their wings.

Not in his direction, the staff cannons were hitting land further down, among the trees a little ways from the beach - the Nasyan village.

Jack gritted his teeth, mind flashing through scenarios, options, what he had to hand... which was damned little.

He'd fired a lot of bullets and staff blasts at Death Gliders over the past year, and not once had they done anything. If he even had a grenade launcher, he'd try it, but nothing like that even existed on this planet.

There was no way they'd win a fight against even one glider, let alone the others that had to be waiting in the wings. Nasya was lost. They had to run... though not alone.

So about half a second after the gliders fired their first shots, as they began firing their second, he whirled to point at Teal'c. "T, finish that dialing and tell Hammond we're coming in, under fire, with refugees!"

He turned to the rest of his team, not needing to see whether Teal'c did it or not, and was gratified to see Volkova running down the beach in the direction of the Nasyan village, already catching up with and pulling ahead of Carter and Daniel. ... Wow, Loveless was keeping pace with Volkova.

Somewhat unnecessarily, he added. "And everyone else, get the Nasyans to the gate, now!" At that, SG-4 snapped into action as well.

Jack brought up his MP-5, jogging after his team and drawing a bead on the lead glider as it swept overhead and began curling around towards the village again.

Sure, it probably wouldn't do anything, but who knew? The four thousandth bullet he tagged a glider with might just get lucky, and failing that it'd at least distract or rattle the pilot a little. Even if that worked, he felt better with his finger on the trigger than sitting around waiting.

The other SGC soldiers apparently decided he had a pretty good idea, bringing their own weapons up and aiming at his target.

Success. They'd at least distracted it from its next run on the village - it arced up... and then nosed down, flipping around to make a run across the beach where the soldiers stood.

Its wingmate continued on to the village, and Jack just shook his head. No coordination... jaffa always fought like they were trying to get high scores, not get the job done. Competing against each other, not the enemy.

You never abandon your partner, no matter what you think of him or how easy the job looks - something could always go wrong and you need each other to save your asses.

Unfortunately, nothing went wrong this time, and as the orange plasma bolts slammed into the sand and fused droplets and patches of glass, Jack ceased firing, rolled to the side, and came back up to finish off his current magazine into the glider's rear.

It continued on without caring about the damage, strafing its way down the beach. Bolts of plasma slammed into wagons, lighting them on fire and blowing them away.

The SG team members were combat-trained enough to duck aside before they got hit and the glider didn't or couldn't turn to follow them with its guns.

The Nasyans weren't. Quinta's eyes bugged out as a staff cannon blast connected directly with his chest, and he flew back, sprawling out next to one of the burning wagons. And he wasn't the only one... a lot of the locals who'd been out here to help the construction, running towards the gate or still standing around shell-shocked...

Loveless was fine, having sidestepped the blasts, and was now moving after the work crews - she reached out for the collar of one man's shirt, hauling him up bodily, one-handed, and almost threw him in the direction of the gate with a short bark of "Run!"

She continued towards the village, repeating the treatment on everyone she reached. Carter and Daniel weren't far behind her, and doing much the same - the first Nasyans were now getting through the gate, Teal'c moving away from it and helping people who'd stumbled make the rest of the distance.

Jack frowned. Speaking of not abandoning your teammates... he didn't see Volkova. Where the hell had she bugged off to? He was going to throw a fit when they got home if she'd froze up under fire, or took a staff.

Jack rose, swapping his empty magazine for a fresh one and moving swiftly down the beach, looking carefully at the bodies he passed. That glider was going to be coming back around again, it'd be able to take at least one more run at the beach without losing any time before it could continue on to the village.

And slightly longer-term - Jack's 'long term' was five minutes from now - he sure as hell wasn't going home with one of his team unaccounted for, whether or not he'd wanted her assigned. At bare minimum he was taking Volkova's body for her folks to bury.

A flash of red caught his eye, and he turned to see the slim Russian girl huddled up behind one of the wagons and fiddling with her backpack, where she'd taken it off and let it lie on the ground... what the hell? The tent poles?

"Volkova, what the hell?! Get moving!"

She shook her head sharply, tapping the pole as she began detaching it from the backpack, and slipping her gun off to let it slide to the ground.

The glider's whine sounded behind him. It'd started its run.

"Now, Sergeant! It's coming this way!"

She brought up her hands, gritting her teeth. "I... take care of it! Can't remember word! Igla!" She leaned over her pack again, unwrapping the handful of poles.

Staff blasts began hitting the sand - he'd judge it as back around the gate's position now. And screams. People.

Jack growled, marching the rest of the way up to her and putting his MP-5 aside. If he had to copy Loveless and pick her up by the scruff he would. "I don't care about your needles! You're not staying here to-!" He paused as he got a view of the 'poles' she was unwrapping. "... Oh. Igla."

He really needed to remember the 'actual' names of Russian weapons better - the one-and-a-half-meter-long tube, and the equally long square-finned missile lying next to it, he immediately recognized as the weapon that got the NATO reporting name of SA-18 'Grouse'. Russian infantry-carried anti-air missile, equivalent of the Stinger.

He ducked aside, taking cover next to her as the girl calmly stood, hefting the tube.

The glider continued bearing down on them, firing at the Nasyans running to the gate, screams echoing across the lake. It was going low. It'd realized in the first run that they didn't have jack that could hurt it, so it was going low and slow so it could shoot the fleeing villagers easier.

Volkova snapped the pistol grip and shoulder stock into place.

The glider's staff-blasts continued to march across the beach towards them, leaving spots of glass in the sand.

Flipped the sight up and the safety off.

The staff-blasts slammed into the ground a meter in front of Volkova's feet, and she turned to offer the glider a profile view as the next pair passed to either side of her, by expression evidently feeling the heat. She'd found the notch between the glider's widely-spaced staff cannons, but if it turned one degree left or right she was dead.

Up over her back - the Grouse wasn't really built to be fired from profile, but she'd be wide enough to get hit if she turned to face the target - almost one-handed, barely glancing into the sight...

And this was how Jack was introduced to one of the few things he had not yet seen in his thirty years of military service: A nineteen-year-old girl pulling an Old West, High Noon, spurs-chaps-and-revolvers, cowboy-style quickdraw shootout against an alien space fighter.

And winning.

There was really no missing at this range, and the missile flashed across the distance (all of ten or twenty meters) to tap into the Death Glider's nose, erupting in fire and blast-fragmentation as half a kilogram of HMX made its opinion of the pilot's god known. The cockpit shattered, and the glider soared overhead, veering slightly to the left - pilot must've tried to pull away, but it was just going to crash in the lake now.

On the other hand, the Igla had not been designed to be fired that close to its target. The blast wave caught Volkova, hurling her and a wave of sand down the beach to land and bounce like a rag doll on the beach.

Jack came back up, jogging up to her position...

His spirits rose when he heard her groan, splaying her limbs out and slumping back for a moment. She held up a finger - index, not middle. "Either... never..." She heaved in a deeper breath, spitting out sand. "Either never doing that again... or doing again as soon as possible." She let her hand fall to the ground again.

Jack grinned, shaking his head as he moved past a bit, grabbing her red beret from where it had fallen to the ground. Okay, maybe Arina Volkova could handle this job after all. "Ready to move, soldier?" He offered her the beret.

Volkova groaned, levering herself up to a sitting position, and waving off the beret. "Was just reminding self what air like." She used the Igla's launch tube - she'd still kept a perfect grip on it when sent flying - as a crutch to bring herself to a standing position again, and began moving back towards her pack, and the other missile.

Jack slipped the beret into his pocket and moved after her. It was then that something occurred to him. "... Wait, did you just bring a missile launcher through the gate? On a milk run?"

Volkova nodded, brushing red hair out of her eyes as she ducked down next to her pack. "Yes sir."

"... I need to check your pack."

She blinked, looking back at him. "But you say be prepared for anything, sir. Reiterate four times in training." She'd counted? Even he hadn't.

"I didn't mean-!" The whining roar of the other Death Glider as it realized what had happened to its partner and tore upward and away from the village made him glance in that direction. "... Point taken."

This was just going to encourage her, wasn't it?

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Jolinar of Malkshur struggled. It would be difficult to explain the chemical secretions she was making and nervous control she made over her host to a human observer - as difficult as a human would find it to explain every muscular twitch and tiny body movement involved in running, the small muscles twitching to maintain balance, lungs heaving for breath... And she knew the principles behind her actions as well as that hypothetical human did - which was to say, not at all. The actions themselves were instinct, but why it worked she'd be at a loss to answer.

In essence... she struggled to save her host. The man had taken a direct hit from a Death Glider's staff cannon. She did not truly think he could be saved, even by her abilities, but she had to try. And not just because she was in him.

Nothing in her life had made her feel less Tok'Ra than this last hunt. She'd had to abandon her host, Rosha. At Rosha's request, but she had been unable to think of a solution by which they could both live. She'd taken over this man's life for two months... telling the people around him everything he would say, if he had not been trying to scream 'There's a snake inside me controlling everything I do'. And now Cronus's forces had followed her. Dozens of Nasyans were dead now, simply because she had been here.

Saving this man wouldn't make it all right. But it might at least make her feel better. Yes. Her. She didn't have a sex, really, or anything a human would understand as a gender identity, but she didn't want to give up Rosha yet. She was already uncomfortable with just how far she was apparently willing to go to live.

There was a thumping next to where her host's body lay - his eyes fluttered open, not under her control when all her effort went into saving his life.

It was Lamia. The mysterious woman her host and his wife Talia had taken in a month before she arrived on this world. Her face offered little expression, but the woman leaned over her host, a slim finger resting against the carotid artery in the neck. No heartbeat - Jolinar couldn't get it working again, couldn't get him breathing... eight more minutes and his brain would begin to die. Lamia tilted Jolinar's host's head back and rested the side of her own head over his mouth for a few seconds - feeling for breathing?

Plugging the nose, and pressing soft lips to her host's, breathing out and into his body. Up, taking another breath, and down again to deliver it. Slender hands knotted together and pressing against her host's breastbone. And then she began slamming down, compressing the ribs under her. Jolinar felt the pain somewhat distantly, likely because the nerves in her host's chest had been burned off. Thirty times. Then lean over again to feel for air...

Lamia began again. This was helping - the timer before her host's brain death set in was frozen. It was not enough, in the slightest, Jolinar realized in a moment of clarity. If true medical professionals with proper equipment - Tok'Ra ideally, though perhaps the Tau'ri would manage it - were on this world for Lamia to preserve her for, her host might survive this.

If they weren't the subject of an invasion. If there were any chance of nine Tau'ri soldiers stopping a full-force ha'tak. If her host stood any chance of surviving being moved.

Her host's eyes flicked to the side, and his lips curled slightly in a smile of his own, just before Lamia's face obscured his view to deliver another breath. Jolinar caught his thoughts - he wasn't a violent man, but even he could take joy in the sight of the machine that had killed him floating, burning and shattered, on the lake.

It wasn't going to be enough. As Lamia moved away to begin compressing his chest again, both Jolinar and her host could see it - dozens of Death Gliders in the distance, descending rapidly towards their position.

... Get out of here. Her host's thoughts floated to the fore.

Her coils constricted - a goa'uld gesture of surprise, analogous to a human gasp. But I-

Any chance of me living means many people will have to stay here. Talia will die. Lamia will die. The Tau'ri will die. He must have caught her evaluation of the situation... it wasn't really possible for goa'uld to lie to their hosts, or the inverse. A shared consciousness made that a ludicrous thought.

... Then you want us to die instead. I understand. It was his choice. He deserved at least one last decision of his own, after all she'd done to him and his. She paused, preparing to relax her efforts to save him.

Me.

Wh... what?

You don't need to die. You're uninjured. His thoughts paused, roiling and ordering themselves. Don't misunderstand, Jolinar. I don't forgive you. Whenever you follow me to whatever is after this life, we will have words. But there's no need for two to die when only one must.

Jolinar closed her eyes - her actual body's eyes. She had no words.

When Lamia next came down to deliver breaths into his lungs, the host's hands wrapped up, holding her head down. She didn't resist, too surprised - a good thing, as the woman was spectacularly strong and even with Jolinar's strength enhancements, it wasn't a sure thing that the man could hold her. Last chance, Jolinar! Go!

... I'm sorry, Quinta. Sorrier still that she couldn't even tell if she was doing this because she wanted to fulfill his last request, or simply because she again wanted to live. She uncoiled from his spinal column, darting out into his mouth through the back of his throat, and then leaping through into Lamia's mouth, burrowing through the tissue at the back of the woman's throat...

... It was... strangely hard to get through, but she was in. She could feel Quinta's grip failing and Lamia pulling free as she coiled around the spine.

What was wrong with this woman? There was far too much metal in here. Jolinar's extended tendrils sought, and eventually found, the appropriate nerves, but they were cables, seemingly made of... not glass, but a related material, some form of silica fiber. She was hooked in... she thought... but...

Lamia's eyes glowed as the link established - just a base-level link, Jolinar didn't want to do a full melding with an unwilling host. Jolinar began sifting through the woman's mind as fast as she could, and would have frowned if she'd had lips - she couldn't seem to access memory, only surface thoughts, and the surface thoughts were confused, disorderly. Not a surprise, since Lamia had little to no idea what a goa'uld even was...

"Loveless!" The body jolted as a hand clapped on Lamia's shoulder. Jolinar turned the head, to see the Tau'ri commander... name was... Colonel O'Neill, right? "Time to go!"

The boots and mottled green pants of the red-haired girl under his command were visible next to him, and when she looked up, she could see that girl looking up at the sky, some kind of long tube over her shoulder and aimed in the general direction of the gliders. 9K38 Igla, anti-aircraft missile, entered Soviet Union service in 1983 CE - her host's surface thoughts identified it for her. ... Why did her host know Tau'ri weapons?

The gliders seemed to fear it - they were making very rapid passes, unable to really shoot human-sized targets with any success at that speed, but less likely to be hit themselves. Sometimes the girl would twitch the missile launcher in the direction of a glider that seemed to be getting too aggressive, and if they noticed, they snapped away instantly. She only had one shot left, there were no spare missiles visible, but none of the jaf'fa wanted to be the one to die to it.

A Tok'Ra saying encapsulated the strategy - 'A used bomb destroys one target. A waiting bomb intimidates a dozen.'

Colonel O'Neill frowned, flicking his fingers in front of her host's eyes. "You there, Loveless?"

Jolinar shook the host's head, wiping the blood - from penetrating the back of the throat - from her mouth with the back of her hand. The wound was rapidly being healed by Jolinar's chemical secretions - even more rapidly than usual, in fact - but the blood from the initial wound would hardly roll back into the vein. "I... yes."

Colonel O'Neill nodded sharply. "Good, now let's get him out of here." He reached for Quinta's lifeless body.

Jolinar brought up Lamia's hand to hold his back. "He's dead... seizure, bit his own tongue." She needed an explanation for the blood on her mouth... and he was dead. She knew his condition intimately... without her there, death would be instantaneous.

Colonel O'Neill nodded, and began to stand up.

But then there was a sudden swell of rage from her host, and Jolinar felt her host's lips move - she had no control. "But we will shall take his body, his wedded spouse deserves the right to bury him." What was going on? Tok'Ra allowed their hosts independence as a matter of philosophy, they couldn't take action against the Tok'Ra's will!

A burst of anger transferred through her host's surface thoughts. She would bring all this down on them, take over the man's life, and then deny him even a decent burial? Judged by her host, feeling the hatred of her actions, Jolinar's heart clenched with shame and guilt. She felt her host's arms slip under her predecessor, hefting him up with an ease that terrified Jolinar - she was not enhancing Lamia at all, and yet the woman was stronger than Rosha or Quinta had ever been.

Lamia stood next to Colonel O'Neill, and immediately began running, the Tau'ri soldier following shortly. Both looking over their shoulders rapidly to track where the gliders were and where they should be.

The younger Tau'ri soldier, the redhead, jogged backwards, keeping up with them despite the heavy pack on her back and not actually going forward, and shifted the Igla on her shoulder before tapping the trigger. A missile leapt off the launcher in a streak of flame from the rocket motor, darting across a kilometer in barely over a second, shattering a Death Glider upon contact and raining shards of its hull down over the Nasyan forest. The girl smiled slightly - the smile reminding Jolinar that nearly every other species in the galaxy bared their teeth as a threat of violence, not an expression of joy. The expression and a look at her face seemed to stir a faint, vague sense of familiarity in her host - no recognition, merely the realization that there was something to recognize. "Work tracking which vulture which pay off. Was one hitting Nasyan village in first pair. No butchers get away alive."

This strategy was encapsulated by a Tau'ri saying that Lamia's surface mind supplied: 'I'm not going back to base with unexpended ordnance.'

They continued their run to the gate, the redhead still moving backwards and keeping the - empty - missile tube pointed up at the gliders.

Colonel O'Neill glanced at the girl. "Volkova, trying to hate them to death over there? Run, you're out of ammo."

"Hoping they not realize that."

The Colonel's head twitched to the side slightly. "Ah, screwit, you're keeping up with my old knees anyway." Even when going backwards.

Well, Jolinar seemed to have no control over what her host was doing, but she didn't have a real complaint about it at this point, so she poured some extra strength into Lamia's legs, helping the woman accelerate down the beach, towards the rippling blue surface of the chappa'ai, where it was guarded by the famed shol'va Teal'c and the blonde scientist Samantha Carter, staff weapon and Tau'ri projectile weapon raised and shooting past O'Neill and the redhead - Volkova.

And in, to safety, with Quinta's body hefted over her shoulder.

Her eyes had a surprising lack of need to adjust between the bright-lit open sky of Nasya, and the closed and claustrophobic underground facility, walls of metal and rock - concrete, her host corrected. It was chock-full, a completely unknowable number of Nasyans had come from the planet and while only the most recent to arrive and most wounded were still in here, that was still quite a lot of people.

Jolinar had to admire the skill of the Tau'ri, this looked like complete chaos to her, yet the green-clad soldiers navigated it with ease, every man and woman seemingly knowing exactly what to do and helping the Nasyans to slip into the complex order they had wrought, orders and shouts echoing across the room and over the intercom.

Lamia used the enhanced strength to pull herself to a halt before slamming into Daniel Jackson's back, where he was being quizzed by a man who had never been to Nasya - Lamia identified the man as 'Colonel Makepeace' after a short glance at his clothing, too quick for Jolinar to actually catch what Lamia had.

"We've still got missing, O'Neill and the rest?"

Daniel Jackson pointed back at the gate with his thumb, still devoting a good portion of his energies to helping Talia walk... the Nasyan woman was wailing, having seen her husband hit by the gliders and forced to leave him... "Right behind me! And dozens of jaf'fa right behind them!" Truly? They must have landed after Quinta was hit and Jolinar distracted... She hadn't really looked back enough to spot them. Or in control of the body, for that matter.

All eyes in the room turned to the gate, waiting.

And the gate rippled. Samantha Carter came through first, stepping quickly down the ramp to clear the way. And then, together, the remaining three came through. The graying-haired Colonel in the center, staff-bearing jaf'fa at his left, and Igla-carrying redhead at his right.

Nobody cheered, the mood wasn't that buoyant, but the return of the last three certainly raised the spirits of the Tau'ri. It seemed to confuse Lamia slightly, and in honesty Lamia's confusion confused Jolinar... Wasn't it natural to be glad to see one's comrades back?

Colonel Makepeace grinned. The three began to step away from the gate.

Then the gate rippled once more, and a silver-armoured jaf'fa stumbled into Colonel O'Neill's back.

All three reacted more or less simultaneously - the Colonel kicked backwards, and both the jaf'fa and the redhead spun their long weapons like quarterstaffs (Jolinar was fairly sure the missile launcher had not been developed to be a melee weapon), together shoving the jaf'fa back and forcing him to stumble back into the gate's event horizon.

Jolinar tried to wince, though Lamia's nonresponsiveness made that difficult. Chappa'ai were only one-way. He was most likely disintegrated, or possibly lost somewhere between space - they'd never quite figured out which.

Makepeace shook himself. "Lock the iris!"

Another jaf'fa came through, and Colonel O'Neill, the jaf'fa, and the redhead dove aside, letting something on the order of a half-dozen soldiers, including Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson, raise Tau'ri projectile weapons and riddle the jaf'fa with bullets before he could even bring his staff to bear.

Then something completely out of Jolinar's experience happened - from within the gate, or perhaps from under the facing of it, slim blades of metal slid out, locking together and covering the gate's surface.

Two 'thumps' against the gate in quick succession marked the demise of two more jaf'fa - there didn't seem room for them to reincorporate as anything more than dust. And then the blue light died, the wormhole closing.

The body began moving again, turning from the stargate. Jolinar tried to stop it, but... she could feel, she could heal and empower... but she couldn't exert control. What was going on?

Lamia stepped up to the auburn-haired Nasyan woman at the back of the room - Talia, Quinta's wife - and cleared her throat. "... Talia. I... sorry." She lowered the previous host's body to the floor in front of his wife, and stepped back.

Talia swallowed thickly, and Jolinar could see the unshed tears in her eyes. She nodded slowly. "... Thank you, Lamia... Could you...?"

Lamia nodded, and moved away, leaving the woman to be alone. Lamia herself moved to the corner of the gate room, leaning back against the wall and slowly slumping to the floor, face buried in her knees.

What... are you? Jolinar had to ask. She knew she'd taken the host properly. Why didn't she have control? Did this have something to do with Lamia's strange internal structure?

Be silent. The answer floated through the shared surface mind. W-17. An artificial being created by Shadow Mirror (who?) to emulate human beings.

Lamia's green eyes flashed, where they were hidden by her knees, patterns scrolling across them, and a tattoo hidden under her clothing on her left shoulder flaring brilliant blue... Jolinar obviously saw neither of these, but was aware through Lamia's consciousness. Initiating her secret transmitter, installed somewhere within her body - transmitting identification, location, and confirmation codes.

The response was immediate. This is W-16. What is your status?

Intact, but potentially compromised. A sudden burst of information, far too rapid for Jolinar to comprehend, thoughts and images and numbers and... she didn't even know, almost overwhelmed in the data flow before it died down.

... Mistress Lemon is in the system. I will pass your report to her position. Await further contact.

Wait! Jolinar tried to shout to Lamia. I am not an enemy to the people of this world! I am Tok'Ra! Her subconscious confirmed it to Lamia, and explained to the woman just what the Tok'Ra were.

But W-16 was the first to respond. ... It can use your transmitter?

She could?

Lamia's response was a moment later. ... It seems so. There was another data burst - too fast for Jolinar to really comprehend, but she thought it included what she had just tried to tell Lamia about the Tok'Ra. Also, my linguistics module is damaged. My speech comes out highly abnormal.

W-16 paused. ... I will pass that on as well. Be aware, Mistress Lemon is not on the planet. It may take up to thirty minutes for the message simply to reach her. She will most likely contact you directly once a course of action has been decided upon.

Understood.

... Welcome back. W-16's transmission cut out.

Jolinar would've sighed if she could. So... she'd got herself stuck in an artificial being that she couldn't control, who was able to see her thoughts as a host could and pass on whatever information she wished about the Tok'Ra.

She'd been worse off. I truly am no enemy of the Tau'ri. I fight against the System Lords.

You say so. Shadow Mirror command will decide what will be done with you. I have informed them of what I know - convincing me serves no purpose.

Jolinar would have frowned, again, if she could. Lamia seemed similar to many of the hosts the Tok'Ra preferred to take - cooperative, willing to go along with what was requested... but she was already cooperating with someone else.

On the other hand... Jolinar hadn't been much a fan of that practice to begin with. One did not achieve wise decisions by forcing their way without consulting with others. She preferred to cooperate with a host rather than overawe them - the way some of them did seemed... dangerously close to the goa'uld simply suppressing their hosts. There would be no point in defeating the goa'uld if they became them - though as this past little venture proved, no matter how highly she held the ideals, they could be... shelved, in the interests of pragmatism.

A sudden flash of insight, and Jolinar realized what she felt like at this time. A goa'uld... host. Used to control over the body, the ability to do as she wished... and then suddenly becoming a passenger, watching someone else from the inside. ... On a certain level, she realized this wasn't unjust, she'd done the exact same thing to Quinta. But she liked life, she wanted to see Lantash again, and she wished to continue to battle the System Lords. She still hoped a true symbiosis could be reached... even if she was starting from the other direction.

We will see. Lamia, her transmission ended and eyes back to normal, looked up, to see the famed SG-1 beginning to decompress from the battle.

Colonel O'Neill, in particular, was digging through the redheaded Volkova's backpack where it lay on the floor. He pulled out an object with an absolutely incredulous look on his face - it looked like a large steel dish, almost. "Land mines, Volkova? You brought land mines?"

A MON-100 - a Soviet-built directional fragmentation mine, analogous to a much heavier version of the American M18A1 Claymore, itself derived from the World War II German trench mine and post-Korean Canadian 'Phoenix' mine using the Misznay-Schardin effect.

Jolinar twitched slightly at the datadump. Her host had a very rapid and technical way of looking at things...

The redhead blinked, looking up at him. "Would have planted to deter pursuit if had opportunity."

O'Neill just shook his head, laying the bowl down and peering in again. "A spare box of bullets?"

"May have encountered significant, long-term fighting. Brought nine millimeter Parabellum for your weapons as well. Regular round, not overpressure types my sidearm use. No want your MP-5s explode when fire."

"That's... appreciated," Samantha Carter mumbled, staring at the space on the floor where the pile was growing - presently a missile launcher, land mine, the ammunition box, a small bag of hand grenades, and a number of military rations and water bottles.

O'Neill pulled out a neatly folded, dull gray blanket. "... Okay, this one's not too crazy. We really don't plan to stay offworld all that long, though."

Volkova shrugged. "Never know."

The shol'va, Teal'c, looked at her with an upraised eyebrow. "And yet no bedding?"

"Rock not that uncomfortable."

O'Neill pulled out a handful of spare batteries and placed them on the floor without comment, before reaching in again and pulling out a trio of short stakes, with fragmenting explosive sleeves around the top - POMZ-2M non-directional fragmentation mines. "More?"

"One unlikely to be sufficient if any needed."

O'Neill put the mines down and reached in again. "... Tourist map of the White House?"

Volkova smirked slightly. "That one was joke."

"I just don't know what to say..."

Daniel Jackson smirked, peering in himself. "Believe me, Arina, that's a pretty rare achievement."

O'Neill rubbed his temples. "Okay, look, I understand the logic here, I honestly do. And a fair chunk of this isn't that crazy. But you've got too much ammo, too many land mines, and that Grouse and the missiles alone are like half your body weight, there's a reason the things're normally held by a two-man team. For a combat op, this's a great load. But we normally do explorer ops - days worth of hiking and hauling. And this one was a milk run, we didn't even... gah!" He shook his head. "Okay, yes, everything goes wrong around us on a pretty frequent basis, but you can't be prepared for every eventuality, and light weight is important too."

Volkova cocked her head. "But if combat occurs, load is validated, and will rapidly grow lighter."

"And if it doesn't? You'll be hauling around near-on double your own weight for most of a day."

"Then it exercise, is it not?"

Jackson chuckled. "Y'know... that attitude right there is probably why she's in such good shape."

O'Neill shook his head. "... Fine, but you're bringing back every bit of ordnance you take offworld and don't fire."

Volkova stood to attention and saluted. "Yes sir."

Lamia and Jolinar continued to watch the people milling about. O'Neill had ordered a quarantine until the Nasyan survivors had been checked for infection, and the Tau'ri worked their way through the group.

It was while a shortish doctor with dark red hair was examining Lamia that the order came in. Much sooner than expected. Lamia and Jolinar 'read' it together.

... You're really going to do it?

That is the order.

... I don't see that I have much opportunity to stop you. You control the body. And... now that I think on it, it may not be a bad idea, they have things we don't and have done better than we have over millennia in the last four years... It was a bit embarrassing to continue using the name 'Against Ra' when they had not actually experienced much success against him, and the Tau'ri had already done it... and Jolinar had made her concerns known regarding the Tok'Ra's longer-ranged plans - or rather, the complete lack thereof. Weakening the System Lords would be no use if there was nothing to finish them off... perhaps the Tau'ri could do that. Jolinar's attempt at large-scale conflict in overthrowing Cronus certainly hadn't worked out. Let's at least do this right. She hadn't intended this course of events, but perhaps Lamia would make a good host after all. If nothing else, learning cooperation and symbiosis from the other side might help her keep out of the territory she'd drifted into.

Very well. They communed rapidly, conferring ideas and hammering out a basic plan.

Time to change everything.

The doctor finished up, nodding. "Okay, now..."

Lamia brought her hands up to the back of her head. Jolinar added the echoing symbiote voice and the glowing eyes... "I surrender."

The doctor's eyes widened. "... Colonel..." She slowly backed up, before Colonel O'Neill and his team arrived.

"What's going on here, Fraiser?"

"I surrender," Lamia and Jolinar repeated.

Suffice to say that O'Neill's hand snapped to a sidearm, Volkova's reached down to a... hand shovel... and Teal'c, Jackson, and Carter braced to attention - though they lacked sidearms.

"You're a gould?!"

Lamia nodded, and relaxed control, allowing Jolinar to speak. "It is... likely that the assault on Nasya was an attempt on me - I have run from Cronus for some time now." They'd agreed to act as though she had always been in Lamia. There was... no need, and nothing gained, for telling Talia that her husband had not been himself for the past two months. And it covered for Lamia's arrival on that world... hiding her involvement in 'Shadow Mirror'. That group worried Jolinar to some extent, but the actions they requested she take thus far were not ones she disagreed with. And it wasn't as though she had the power to stop Lamia anyway, perhaps if she cooperated and learned more, she may convince the artificial woman - or be convinced herself. "Not all goa'uld are the same. There are a few, who oppose the System Lords and their ways." She looked at Teal'c. "You must have heard of the Tok'ra."

Teal'c shook his head, stepping closer. "Every goa'uld seeks power for his own reason, and would betray his own brother to acquire it. That one System Lord desired your death proves nothing."

"Not every goa'uld is an enemy to the people of this planet. The Tok'Ra are real. No matter what Apophis has told you."

Teal'c shook his head. "I have yet to meet one."

"You have now. I am Jolinar, of Malkshur." One advantage of being more aggressive and risk-taking than the average Tok'Ra: name recognition. Lamia added: "And Lamia Loveless."

Teal'c frowned slightly, turning to O'Neill. "... I have heard the name. There is a legend, among the jaf'fa, regarding the Tok'Ra... I cannot speak for its truth."

O'Neill frowned, and waved to his team. "All right, let's move her to a holding cell for now. Toker or gould, the spooks'll want to talk to her."

Teal'c and Samantha Carter nodded, moving to the front - O'Neill and Volkova remained behind her, and Daniel Jackson moved to her side. The group began moving rapidly down the hall - they didn't bother shackling her hands, knowing goa'uld strength would take all of a flick of the wrists to break out.

Jackson shook his head slowly. "... Why did you decide to surrender?"

"The strength of the Tau'ri is undeniable, but it is not enough. The skill of the Tok'Ra is substantial, but it is not enough. With alliance, it may become sufficient. Do not the Tau'ri have a saying? 'Hang together, or hang separately'?" That one was from her host.

"You're talking about us allying ourselves with body-stealing parasites. Even if you don't play god over thousands of slaves-"

"The capability does not inherently create the inclination. Your body allows you to engage in cannibalism, but you do not. You require food, but you obtain it from outside your species. We require hosts, but obtain them by asking permission. The body is shared." Ideally speaking. She wasn't going to talk about what they'd do if desperate, or the 'borderline' attitudes common among the Tok'Ra.

"Quite a tall tale there," O'Neill noted. "You're gonna have to give us something more if you really expect us to even entertain this idea, you know."

"I will provide information, within reason. I have three pieces I can offer immediately, on a good will basis."

O'Neill waved a hand. "Go on."

"One: The location of a recent - possibly current - Tok'Ra base facility, where you may go for negotiation." This one had been the hardest for her... but in the end, symbiosis and coexistence was about trust. The Tok'Ra had violated the trust first, she'd taken two hosts against their will, and not to mention their failure against Apophis's attack. So they would have to trust the Tau'ri now - they'd spent their right to demand that trust.

"And how are we supposed to believe it's not a trap?"

Lamia let Jolinar shrug. "Send a small team, remain in constant contact. Two: An Ashrak pursued me to Nasya. He may have made it through the gate."

O'Neill glanced at Teal'c for explanation.

"'Hunter'. A goa'uld assassin. Here to kill you?"

Lamia shook her head. "We thinkish that. Not the slightest possible actual way to be sure."

O'Neill nodded, bringing up a radio. "Okay, add some kind of inner body scan to the Nasyan check - we're looking for a snake. And start a sweep of the base, look for any possible sabotage or people hiding." He glanced at Jolinar and Lamia, shutting down the radio. "That includes any you may have made, by the way."

Jolinar didn't even dare to think how badly this could've gone if she'd been caught - surrendering at least gave her quite a few points to start with. "There are none."

"Sure, sure, we'll see. What's number three?"

Jolinar paused, looking at Daniel Jackson. "... The location of Sha're. Tok'Ra medical aid can remove Amaunet, but I personally lack the skills and equipment."

That one got a response. It was a good thing she'd stumbled across that little tidbit while on the run.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

George Hammond couldn't claim to like this. But... well. He'd been called to testify at a Senate hearing regarding possible impeachment for the President. He hadn't received orders to say anything other than the truth.

In fact, if he had received such orders, he would have testified about that as well. He followed lawful orders.

Either way, there were a number of steps yet to go - through the House of Representatives, then the Senate, before anything happened. This wasn't directly related to the impeachment movement - it was more that the Senate wanted to know just what in God's name had happened. Though it was likely that what was said here would be repeated in the House.

At least it was a friendly face - the man running the proceedings was an old war buddy, Henry Hayes. Second-ranking member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, but the chairman was ninety-six years old and possibly senile, having promised to step down as chairman a few months ago, so Henry got to ask the questions.

Henry flashed George a short, hidden smile, before speaking. "All right. We've heard most of what we need about the main running of the Stargate Program. We're going to move on to the period surrounding the alien attack this January... good lord, I really said that..."

A round of perfunctory chuckles.

"Okay." Henry picked up a number of papers, nodding to himself. "The basic chain of events here is: Senate Appropriations Committee withdrew funding from the Stargate Program. Senator Kinsey," he nodded to the man, "as chairman of Appropriations, was briefed on the program and situation in hopes that he would restore funding, but refused to. Gate activity was shut down, but the flagship team, SG-1, disobeyed orders and dialed a site they believed was the launching point of a goa'uld attack. History seems to have proven them correct, since they landed on one of the attacking ships - and mission log states that they blew up one with well-placed C-4, and were working on the second when our 'Guests' took it down, and were eventually returned when the Guests decided to buzz NORAD. The official defensive decision was to hide the fact that we detected the oncoming ships, pretend to be unaware of the threat, and sneak-attack them with experimental warheads - which failed. At this point our Guests leapt into the battle, SG-1 destroyed the first ship, and Apophis himself ran down to Earth. Apophis outpaced the Guests and launched a bombardment of Moscow, killing approximately one hundred thousand - I'd give exact numbers but the death toll still hasn't been properly counted. At this point, we know the rest - international outcry, President Nichol disclosed the gate and existence of aliens to the entire world, ourselves included, and due to international pressure and offers of substantial assistance, the administration decided to reopen gate operations and allow select foreign personnel into Stargate Command." He caught his breath, and lowered the papers, pulling down his glasses. "General Hammond, is that more or less accurate?"

George nodded. "It is, Senator." Titles here - they were closer than that, but the United States Senate was a place for decorum.

"Any part of the 'less' that you feel the need to set straight?"

George shook his head. "It's accurate."

"All right then. Let's move on to details and questions. I'll open up here. Our options for defence - at the time we became aware of the attack - were to muster our forces, and probably call the rest of the world to get some more, or to play possum and try to jump 'em with a superweapon surprise. Obviously we tried the latter and it didn't work. Could you offer some insight as to why Colonel Samuels's plan was selected?"

George frowned, and shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I supported option A."

"I noted your protest logged. Mind if I ask why you didn't like Samuels's plan?"

George frowned. "A number of reasons. The main thrust was, it disabled us from pursuing any other options - nobody was prepared, and after the 12Gs went off, electromagnetic interference made it impossible to prepare any other response. I didn't have absolute confidence it would work - the weapons were experimental and may not have even gone off, and we had essentially no intelligence regarding gould ships, they may have simply been tough enough to suck up the hits, and they may have had the capability to detect the missiles and evade or shoot them down. Or they may have coincidentally maneuvered outside the 12G's target path without ever even noticing them." George paused. "Let me be clear - Samuels's plan was the preferable outcome. I just didn't know if it would work and didn't like the idea of not having a Plan B, but the lack of mobilization negated any chance of that. And the weapons are good weapons and an excellent concept for a further series, they just weren't wonder weapons."

Joseph Reed - one of the Senators on the Armed Services Committee - leaned forward to speak. "What kind of 'Plan B' did we even have? We're not exactly built for battle against spacecraft."

"Plan B would've been ugly, Senator. But we do have anti-satellite weapons in our arsenal capable of hitting targets like that, as do the Russians, and a sufficient mass-assault may have been able to achieve results. Failing that, Plan C would have been to evacuate as many people as we could to distributed zones where the gould motherships would have found it difficult to kill many at once, and hardened and hidden locations. It's basically infeasible for an orbital bombardment to glass the surface of a planet and get everyone, they would have been there for years trying to hit the place inch-by-inch. The existing world order would have collapsed, but a fair portion of the people would have survived."

"These worst-case plans seem to... suck. Why exactly did you protest Samuels's plan?"

"I didn't. I agreed that the 12Gs made the best Plan A we had at the time, despite their flaws. I protested solely to the idea of not informing our forces or other nations and getting them to readiness. Sir... Plan B and Plan C were horrible options. But because we failed to ready our forces, when Plan A failed, we were left with Plan D - be bombarded to extinction or be enslaved by Apophis. It's solely through the actions of SG-1 and the Guests that that bad policy didn't destroy this planet in its entirety."

Kinsey spoke up. "You've been saying Plan A was the best option. Why don't you tell us, for the record, what was so good about it?"

George frowned slightly, wondering where the Senator was going with this. "The 12Gs were extremely powerful weapons, in theory, and unlike most of our arsenal, built to attack orbital targets."

"You didn't consider that throwing weapons of mass destruction in orbit was a flagrant violation of the United States treaty obligations?"

George paused, and took a deep breath, shaking his head. "No, Senator. I did consider it. However, my position is military - international relations are the purview of people far above me. And personally, I would say that a treaty violation is worth saving the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet." Strange... George had thought Kinsey had been supporting the plan.

Kinsey nodded, turning to the Senate at large. "The General makes a good point. We may have passed beyond the point where we can afford not to use weapons of mass destruction in orbit... but we did still unilaterally violate the Outer Space Treaty." He turned back to George. "Why do you think the President signed off on the play-possum plan?"

George's eyes widened as he realized what Kinsey's sudden topic shift had done - he hadn't actually spoken on the same topic, but he'd implied, accurately, that the President had signed off on a treaty violation... He was aiming to get Nichol impeached and come out clean himself. He probably had signed off on the plan himself, and now that it had screwed up he was abandoning it like a sinking ship. And there was no way Hammond could prove it.

George shook his head. "The President's decision-making is his to explain. I was not told the reasoning, and do not believe it prudent to suppose."

"To prevent disclosure? Didn't Colonel Samuels say 'the world will never know how close we came to Armageddon'? To try and avoid this whole affair? I'll warrant that the nation has come off looking quite badly from our solo use of the gate, and the assault on Moscow. It would be understandable that he didn't want that revealed."

"... It's possible. However, if that were the objective, a degree of secrecy still could have been maintained - in a pinch, claim that a nuclear exchange with Russia or China looks likely, and then if it turns out unnecessary, pass it off as another glitch at NORAD." Now that George followed it through... it didn't make sense... had Nichol's advisors misrepresented the situation to him to put Samuels's plan at the top of the list? Kinsey himself?

Kinsey nodded. "Moving on to another topic. SG-1 does not appear to have taken any significant censure from their violation of orders. Their actions were in the best of intentions, yes, but they still grossly and directly violated orders, making use of top-secret military equipment..."

Henry cast him a look. "'Bust me on the ground', Bob. The United States made Colonel O'Neill a Colonel because it expected him to know when not to follow orders. A soldier's duty to defend lives comes before his duty to obey orders - if it can be proven that it was necessary and the right decision."

Senator Reed nodded. "I agree. I'd say that the fact that SG-1 found itself aboard one of the alien ships, and successfully blew it up, indicates that lives were saved by their violation of orders." He leaned on his hand. "Now I'm wondering what would've happened if that mission had been run under orders instead of against them. We could've put half the US Army onboard those ships, with a lot better than C-4..."

Henry nodded wistfully. "Let's go onto the next one - Bob? You were basically the one behind that shutdown order. Why?"

Kinsey shook his head. "Well, in hindsight it definitely looks the wrong decision, but I don't see the future. At the time, it looked like the SGC was running across the galaxy and antagonizing the gould without actually bringing anything back, except for an ever-increasing likelihood that they'd come to try wipe us out. And don't get me wrong on this Henry - they were. The only part I was wrong on was that the attack was already coming. I thought we still had time to back off before things went into an interstellar war we weren't equipped for."

"But SG-1 did have intelligence indicating the attack was coming - and where it was from, for that matter."

"... With due respect, Henry, are you serious? That 'intelligence', by their own admission, came from Doctor Jackson wandering alone into an alternate universe. Even if it was true - and none of you tell me it doesn't sound absolutely insane - there was no way of knowing it was applicable to this universe."

Senator Reed frowned. "This makes me wonder... President Nichol was a strong supporter of the program. And he had the power to override Appropriations on it. Does anyone know why he didn't? If he considered the intelligence credible..."

George winced. He'd been hoping he wouldn't be asked this... because he was going to have to answer. The same thing he'd told Colonel O'Neill when asked. "He said it would be political suicide."

At this rate, the Tollan affair was going to come out too.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Edrekh honestly sort of enjoyed this particular hunt. There weren't many who had forced him to go as far as burning himself to unrecognizeability and swallowing his hara'kesh so he would be evacuated with the injured - and suffice to say, forcing the thing from his stomach and out his throat was a very uncomfortable experience, Ashrak in general were trained in the technique but tried to avoid using it.

Of course, he was a bit strange even as Ashrak went.

But the hunt was approaching its end now. He'd finished healing the burns a short time ago, and knocked out a guard who was checking on him, swapping clothing so he wore the military clothing and the guard took his place in the burn wrapping.

That was another bit that made him strange for an Ashrak - or a goa'uld, for that matter. He tended not to kill. It wasn't that he was a nice person, of course - again, he was a goa'uld - it was simply more elegant that way. And a clean sweep, nothing dead but his target and nobody even aware he'd been there... oh, he didn't get those often, but the attempt was quite the experience.

At the moment, he was working his way through the Nasyans. He didn't actually know which of them Jolinar was in, and while he'd confirmed that he'd felt her presence before calling in Cronus's jaf'fa, he didn't actually know her current position. And that itself had been annoying, he could have done a better job on his own, without slaughtering the populace, actually confirming Jolinar's demise... but Cronus had wanted to make an example of the Nasyans for sheltering a Tok'Ra, whether or not they'd known. Didn't really make sense - the goa'uld denied the very existence of the Tok'Ra, and then punished people for cooperating with them - but Edrekh obeyed his orders, in part because he would be the next example if he didn't...

He ran the light of the hara'kesh over the sleeping auburn-haired woman, interfacing with her mind... hit. It had taken perhaps fifteen Nasyans scanned before he'd found a hint. Her husband had had an entry scar on the neck - which was itself unusual for a Tok'Ra, and indicated this host had been taken forcibly, because Jolinar had not gone in the mouth, denying herself the view of the host's emotions that Tok'Ra favoured. The man was dead - his body brought to her by a woman who had arrived on the planet most mysteriously, and been staying in their home.

Edrekh wondered... was it her? He could either stand and think about it, or he could simply go for her and find out. He stepped away from the woman - Talia - leaving her to her troubled dreams.

He always chose the latter.

Now, he remembered the woman from the scan he'd given the guard he'd knocked out and replaced. Lamia Loveless, transferred to one of this facility's prison blocks. Which, if it was related to Jolinar, would have to bump his estimation of the Tau'ri quite significantly, it was quite a rapid detection and response, barely a few hours with absolutely nothing to go on...

That was another thing that made him the best Ashrak - he could see from the perspective of his opponents, imagine what they knew and how they'd react to it.

Edrekh strode through the facility, through the masses of Nasyans and Tau'ri soldiers. First target: the security room. He wanted to get out smoothly, and that meant he'd need to cut off footage of him executing Jolinar. Unfortunately, if there was any more than one person in the security room, he'd need to kill them - it took time to make people unconscious, time he could not afford with another one screaming for help or trying to kill him.

Where it went wrong was when he ran into an older, higher-ranking Tau'ri, with short, rapidly graying hair, just outside the security room.

One who apparently made a point of knowing his subordinates, as he frowned, laying a hand on Edrekh's shoulder as he passed. "Oy. Why're you wearing Quincy's uniform?"

Fortunately, Edrekh wore his hara'kesh, and was always ready to use its mindlink to hypnotize people who caught him - to be sure, he could attempt to play it off, but he had nowhere near the familiarity with this place or its procedures to succeed. He whirled around, hara'kesh already glowing, bringing it up towards the man's face - O'Neill, the name tag said...

Then O'Neill caught Edrekh's arm, dragging it down and away from himself. "Snake!" he yelled.

Damnation. This would turn into a fight in the corridor and completely blow his cover if he took much longer - already, the staff in the security room could likely hear them.

Edrekh brought his spare hand around to catch O'Neill's right, and ducked in, slamming his head into the man's.

In the end, personal combat did not come down to 'skill levels'. It came down to proper body movement to generate force and momentum, and apply it to the enemy's body without losing it. Once you had it, you had it.

O'Neill's knee came up between Edrekh's legs - or rather, tried to, but Edrekh was able to block it by raising his own leg. The blow hurt quite a bit, but not as much as it could have.

O'Neill had it - against most goa'uld, the Tau'ri would win. But Edrekh had it, and superhuman strength and endurance as well.

He spun, leg scything out below O'Neill to pull him down to the ground. Failed, O'Neill managed to stay up long enough to step over the leg, planting his weight on another foot. Still, as long as Edrekh held onto O'Neill, strength would tell.

Which was why Edrekh was surprised when O'Neill spat into his face. More than a simple gesture of defiance, the saliva obscured his vision - O'Neill managed to use Edrekh's moment of disorientation to release his grip on Edrekh's right hand, diving lower.

Edrekh shook his head sharply, clearing his eyes as best he could, and brought up his hara'kesh, glowing once more. It was limited in capability compared to the kara'kesh goa'uld tended to use... but it was small enough to actually have it on this mission.

Then O'Neill's hand reached the holster on Edrekh's right hip, dancing over the Tau'ri sidearm, and darting in to pull the trigger.

The weapon was loud, propelling a high-velocity metallic slug straight into his host's foot. Edrekh considered screaming, but decided to snap his arm down on O'Neill's head instead.

Or, attempt to - O'Neill suddenly stood, angling his arm and shoulder, and Edrekh's knife-hand skidded over O'Neill's right arm - Edrekh had to let go and move his own arm to prevent the blow from hitting himself.

O'Neill brought up his hands, holding Edrekh's right arm against his body, and shoved, spinning, to press the Ashrak back against the corridor wall.

Edrekh brought his own knee up - not between O'Neill's legs, but into the vulnerable kidneys on the side of his torso. He was already working to heal his host, and while the hole in his foot would take some time to vanish, it was at least not paining him enough to make him freeze.

The pain was visible on O'Neill's face, and he reflexively let go of Edrekh's arm.

Edrekh noted that his upper thigh was pointing roughly in O'Neill's direction, and brought his right arm down to the holster. He'd just got shot with this weapon, time to make it work for him.

O'Neill seemed to ignore this, arcing an arm around and into Edrekh's temple, even as he stepped forward to hook around Edrekh's left leg - the intent to push Edrekh aside and to the floor was plain, and the head blow would hurt as well.

The reason why O'Neill had ignored it became apparent when the weapon failed to fire - the holster must have jammed its regular operating cycle.

O'Neill pushed, and Edrekh fell to the floor - caught himself on his hands, and kicked O'Neill in the stomach as he bounced back up.

This had taken too long. Edrekh was already facing away from O'Neill, so he simply ran, and darted around the first corner - just in time, as three barks of O'Neill's own sidearm came, and sparks came off the wall just past his previous position. He wasn't here to brawl with O'Neill, he was here to kill Jolinar. A pity, though.

Edrekh was not of a species that smiled, but he would have - he felt it. The Tau'ri had truly formidable warriors - a man who could go head-to-head with an Ashrak and make the outcome questionable. And even the lesser ones he'd seen were far, far superiour to jaf'fa. His work was going to get a great deal more fun.

It wasn't long before the security alerts began echoing through the facility. While there was no description of him, it was a fair estimate to the people he passed that the running man with a bleeding hole in his boot might have something to do with it - which was why the first thing he did was intercept a lone security guard, frazzle his mind with the hara'kesh, and exchange boots, holsters, and sidearms, before continuing through the facility at a calm, measured pace.

Not running meant O'Neill might catch up. Running meant anyone he passed in the somewhat crowded facility would know he was up to no good.

His previous plan was scrap, but he could still accomplish the mission - and that came first, if he went back home without doing it, Cronus or Selket would have him hunted down, flayed, and fed alive to his own host. Then resurrected to do it again and try the really creative stuff.

Besides, improvising a conclusion to this mission whereby he succeeded and got out intact was going to be fun.

His rapid but calm movement through the facility quickly paid off - he was at the holding cells. It was a small base, and he'd hijacked a map from Airman Quincy's mind.

He opened the door, hara'kesh in one hand and his new sidearm in the other, snapping both out into the faces of the surprised guards.

Even as their mouths opened to issue challenge, the sidearm boomed, and the hara'kesh glowed. Both guards fell, one very much dead, one only a fair amount of the way there.

Edrekh stepped the rest of the way in, closing the door behind him. A goa'uld door he could scramble, but this simple mechanism was much more difficult to jam. He'd simply have to be quick.

There, across the room, behind bars - he felt the symbiote. The host was new, but suited Jolinar's tastes - blonde (if a greenish blonde), beautiful, female.

He shook his head, peering at the sidearm he'd just used. "Interesting weapons, these..." He put it back in its holster - he'd want a few of these for the future. Absolute joy to use, less visually impressive than goa'uld weaponry, but far better at dealing damage to the internal organs - and a simple, intuitive design that meant he could fire them, accurately, within hours of first touching one. Genius.

He stepped up to the bars, and laid a hand on the door, snapping it aside - his strength immediately broke the lock. He stepped in, and began the message he had been ordered to deliver. "Kree'shak, Jolinar. By decree of the Goa'uld System Lords, you will die with dishonor, by the power of the hara'kesh." He brought his up - a simple, slim ring resting on the inside of his middle finger - and waited. Where possible, he gave his victims their final words - it was, after all, simply polite.

Jolinar's face remained blank, but she folded her host's arms across her - admittedly impressive - chest. "Hear this. The days of the System Lords are numbered. Tell them that I die with hope. My death merely feeds the hearts of the Tok'Ra."

Spirited. Edrekh lit up the hara'kesh. The glow played across Jolinar's face, exposing... normally it made bone visible, but something looked strange... she refused to scream.

And then things went wrong again - Jolinar moved. He was directly affecting her and her host's nervous system, and placing them in incredible pain besides. Even if she could muster up the will, there should have been no way for her mind's commands to reach her limbs...

Just the same, her hand came up, grasping his hara'kesh hand by the wrist and bending it around behind him as she moved. Edrekh lost precious time to his shock, and by that time, Jolinar was behind him, right arm pinning his behind his back, left hand on his head, and pushing him forward with utterly impossible strength.

He staggered, pulling back slightly from the starry web his head had made in the concrete of the wall... and was then shoved forward again. His nose broke, gushing blood down the front of his face.

When Jolinar's arm slacked back again, he refrained from trying to back away - that would just give her more space to build up momentum. He tried moving to the side, but the head injuries he'd already sustained made him too slow...

Her palm crashed into the back of his head, driving a dent into the concrete shaped to fit his face.

Jolinar spoke. "... You could have told me you could do that. That death speech embarrasses me now."

The same mouth responded. "Ask you did not."

"... We are going to have to work on this."

Edrekh used the pause to twist his hara'kesh where it was behind him... roughly towards the voices. Neural effect worked better at short range to the head, but the heat-blast worked fine.

Except that it didn't even stagger Jolinar's host.

Her hand arced around, crashing into his temple with incredible strength...

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Vindel Mauser looked out the 'window' of his office - not actually a window, of course, simply a high-quality screen, since the office itself was buried in several layers of armour.

It looked like a warzone out there - the two-hundred-kilometer 'dog bone' shape of the 216 Kleopatra asteroid, as well as its two smaller 'moons', was slowly being gnawed away by a hail of crimson particle accelerator beams, both from Shangri-La where he stood, and Sierra de la Plata, brought back into the near-area system and stationed nearby. Barely even visible nibbles - their weapons were powerful, but they weren't constantly firing, and the thing was incredibly large, possessing, approximately, the volume of Shadow Mirror's entire fleet, before losing eighteen vessels, four hundred thousand times over.

It wasn't actually a war zone, of course. They were simply carving off chunks to be mined - right now, they needed metals to build Outer Heaven, and 216 Kleopatra was one of the asteroid belt's rarer M-type asteroids. 16 Psyche was even larger and richer, but Kleopatra was loosely-packed, much easier to mine.

Lemon, in Wonderland, was a fair amount closer to Earth, cutting up Halley's Comet for water supplies - in particular, hydrogen-1 for the particle accelerators they were still firing, and hydrogen-2, deuterium, to top up the reactors. And storing the oxygen from that - they'd need a rather large amount to fill Outer Heaven when it was sealed. A fair amount of regular water too, though - they had plenty of drinking water, but they could always use more.

Of course, they'd calculated where they were cutting away, to control the orbit and ensure the thing didn't wobble and crash into Earth on its next run to the inner solar system in 2061 - though to be honest, it may not exist anymore by 2061, depending on how much water they required and where they got it from. Still, nothing lost by planning long-term.

These 'Tok'Ra' may just get interesting. At the very least, Shadow Mirror required offworld intelligence, and if they linked up with Earth... well, they didn't have the military force to be a severe threat, and by seeing how the Tok'Ra treated Earth, with a view from inside the Tok'Ra, they'd have a better idea just what they were looking at out there. And Earth now had a goa'uld prisoner - meaning that if that 'genetic memory' thing panned out, and the interrogations worked, Shadow Mirror could trade with Earth for goa'uld technology information from the maker's perspective. Or in a pinch, steal it.

Overall, things had finally started going well - the gate was ready and awaiting infrastructure before they ran heavy offworld operations (he didn't want to run to other worlds without an iris to shut out anything unwanted), the amount of people he'd successfully brought to this world had tripled, several of his key experts were in place and getting to work, Outer Heaven's construction was under way, and now he was getting lucky breaks like knowledge of these 'Tok'Ra'. Now as long as Earth didn't go the way of the Federation again and nothing new horrible happened...

He looked up at Marita, where she stood at military ease in front of his desk. "At least we know what these 'goa'uld' actually are, now."

"Yes sir. Doctor Scaglietti is examining the ones we've captured - he wanted to borrow a few W-Series to practice something with the mature ones."

"I'm not sure I want to know, but go ahead and explain it to me."

"He wanted to see if he could safely extract the parasites, as a precaution in case something happens to our offworld explorer teams. Other workable options are isolating their strength enhancement and healing capabilities for use without the rest of the parasite, or interrogating the goa'uld to see what we can find out."

Vindel hummed. "Give him his dolls, but tell him that goa'uld related research is secondary - his first priority is Project Hyperion. We don't have Helios, but we do have some hair, skin, and blood samples now that Sierra de la Plata is here. I want System XN working."

Marita nodded. "Understood, sir."

"Sir!" Alexander Walther yelled as he burst into the office. Looked quite frazzled, as if he'd been running the whole way, and grease-smeared.

"I sometimes regret an open-door policy... Yes, Walther?"

The petite engineer leaned over, heaving for breath. "I... found... the engines."

"The goa'uld ship's engines? Judging by your excitement, they're something spectacular?"

Walther, having caught his breath, shook his head. "On their own, useless. The thrust they generate is positively anemic compared to standard reaction drives, let alone our fusion rockets."

Vindel raised an eyebrow. "Pride in your old work? They seemed fairly agile."

"Not just pride, sir. It's similar to the Gravicon on the Huckebein's Mark II prototype, and the bullshit the Inspectors kept pulling on us. It's a reactionless, inertia-reducing drive, operates by generating and manipulating... what I'd call 'pseudo-gravity'... in basic, sir, it's got incredibly poor thrust because there are so many more parts for efficiency to creep out and it's trying to get around physics instead of working with it, but because it reduces the overall mass, it has spectacularly high thrust/weight and acceleration. Side benefit is that it also regulates internal inertial forces - we're talking artificial gravity, and more importantly, it can negate, or at least reduce, the effect of g-forces on a pilot."

Marita stared at him. "... That's..."

"Useless on its own. But coupled with a high-thrust fusion rocket... we're talking gamebreaking, sir."

Vindel leaned forward. "How gamebreaking, Walther?"

"Hard to tell for sure what we can do with it, sir. But for a theory example... a drive unit about one fifth the internal volume of that ship cuts down the mass to half and then exerts force roughly equal to one gee. We've got more than enough internal space for a unit in that size range on Shangri-La, and if we can just duplicate the half-mass effect - then Shangri-La can go dogfighting with Gespensts. The Gespensts and Lions... we're talking dreamland mobility here, sir, and inertial compensation to make use of it without risk to the pilot."

Vindel tapped his cheek. "Similar to the Gravicon... could it be used to generate a G-Territory?"

"In principle, yes, if it can generate pseudogravity one way, it can also generate it to direct attacks away. I'd have to dive into the guts before I could say whether I could actually do it."

"Check into it. That's your new priority - you can focus on getting new toys through the gate once you've made proper use of the ones we already have. An unanalyzed technology is nothing but a trinket. And put your Lions on hold, the Ashsabers... get Lemon and O'Neill off the ATXK until you've analyzed these drives and determined to what degree they can be implemented, and continue work on System XN."

Walther nodded. "So... Gravicon, XN, ATXK and Lions, and then gate?"

"As a general order of-" Vindel's D-Con buzzed. He frowned, tapping the personal data unit and switching it to speaker. "You're on. What is it?"

Claire O'Neill's voice came through. "This is gate ops. Got a problem here, boss." Here she demonstrated that she actually could be serious - it was a choice, not a disability, that led to her usual personality.

Because of course it couldn't continue going well... "What do we have?"

"We were heading through to Nasya to retrieve W-17's Angelg - she hid it and went on foot into the village, and since she had to withdraw under fire, we thought we'd get it back, disassemble it and ship it through the gate."

"Mm? Couldn't find it? Just call W-17 and have her relay the position."

"Nah, we found it, boss. Or... well, we found where it was."

"... You had best not mean what I think you mean."

"Damage to the trees and divots in the ground consistent with a machine of Angelg's size and mass lying there for months. No mech. The goa'uld left the planet after they hit the Nasyans, boss, and..."

Fuck.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Author's Notes:
First of all, as always, thanks go out to prereaders (Sunshine Temple, Belgarion213, Ellf, DCG). And al103 for Russian help!
Since one of my prereaders brought it up: Earth isn't half the sentient life in the entire universe - only in the known-to-the-Asgard universe. Thor doesn't actually know about the Aschen, Oriville, or Pegasus. But since the Milky Way has mostly come from seed populations from when the total world population was 5-10 million and been massacred when they develop technology allowing for higher populations... and Ida's been getting blasted down to bedrock by a robot war...
I suppose I should answer GenoBeast's question (my first review for this one on FFNet, feels like I should hold a party or something...). The crossover is an anime/game series called Super Robot Wars. You don't really need to know Super Robot Wars to 'get' the fic, I'm writing it from the Stargate perspective and am revealing the relevant SRW details at a measured, digestible pace. Assume that if I haven't revealed something yet, it's not really key for you to know (though it may cast earlier scenes into a different light, or help you understand what people are talking about in the 'hinting' bits), and will mostly serve as an in-joke or an a-hah for people who do know SRW.
The commentary on bin Laden might seem to be out of place for y'all in our modern context, but remember, fic-time is 1998. Bin Laden hasn't actually done anything yet, Al Qaeda wasn't even really heard of outside the intelligence community (why O'Neill knows) until late August. And yes, bin Laden would've gone on his looniebars quest without Apophis's attack and any mishandling of the Stargate, we know that - he's just using it as an extra excuse. I considered using a No Celebrities Were Harmed version, but honestly, there wouldn't actually have been any changes from the RL equivalent where there are of Nichol and Hayes. And I certainly don't care enough to try avoid defaming that fuckwit.
What O'Neill's not saying is that he was involved in Operation Cyclone, and was one of the people involved in training Bin Laden's group-that-became-Al-Qaeda - the non-Afghani fighters in Afghanistan were mostly not dealt with by the US (contrary to their own opinion, they were an amusing little sideshow to the real war, and in fact almost doomed the Afghan resistance after the Soviets left), but on occassion they proved so insistent on involving themselves that the CIA tried to send people out to make them competent and less likely to engage in psychotic excess in the war (mostly unsuccessful on both counts). I imagine the reason he's not saying it is obvious... but as he's said to Teal'c, in his time he's done some damn distasteful things.
Regarding capitalization of 'Asgard': You don't capitalize Human, do you? Do you talk about White and Black? Where race is at question, there is no capitalization - 'the Asgard', on the other hand, denotes the cultural and governmental group (ie, American). For instance, goa'uld, being a race name, doesn't get capitals, but Tok'Ra, being a cultural subset of goa'uld, does.
(Another note: Thor says Shangri-La is approximately twice the size of Beliskner, and that's accurate - but it's not twice as long. More like 1.25-1.5 times as long, the 'twice the size' comes in terms of total volume and mass. The O'Neill class - which obviously doesn't have a name yet - will be about the same size.)
Also, for clarification, the 'stripy shirt thing' is a telnyashka/tel'nik - but the only people on SG-1 who know what the word is are O'Neill, Daniel... and, well, now Arina.
As always, reviews, comments, corrections, and etcetera are appreciated whether for good or ill, and my email's always open (PaleWLF @ gmail com).

[Wyrd]

Small error:

Though as he watched the battle unfold across the room, it was clear that technological superiourity lost to people who knew properly how to use less-advanced technology - the skill of the human-he-presumed pilots was undeniable, though it was hard to compare against the categorically poor training the goa'uld gave to jaf'fa. And the projectile weaponry... the Ancients would have called it 'primitive, but effective'. Thor would call it 'effective'.

should be: the human-he presumed-pilots

His spirits rose when he heard her groan, splaying her limbs out and slumping back for a moment. She held up a finger - index, not middle. "Either... never..." She heaved in a deeper breath, spitting out sand. "Either never doing that again... or doing again as soon as possible." She let her hand fall to the ground again.

Loved this line.

Got some good action in this one. And as O'neil admits, things mess up around them often enough to warrant being extra prepared even on milk-runs. They do, however, carry some claymores with them usually, since they have had them available to set up in several episodes where they were not expecting resistance. Then again, I don't think those were episodes where they were going to a planet known to be peaceful.

[Pale Wolf]

should be: the human-he presumed-pilots

Got it, thanks.

Loved this line.

Heheheheh. Glad you liked it.

Got some good action in this one. And as O'neil admits, things mess up around them often enough to warrant being extra prepared even on milk-runs. They do, however, carry some claymores with them usually, since they have had them available to set up in several episodes where they were not expecting resistance. Then again, I don't think those were episodes where they were going to a planet known to be peaceful.

Yup. Carrying claymores makes sense. Arina, however, carries around what is roughly analogous to an uber-claymore (the MON-100 is about triple the mass, and boom, of a claymore - the MON-50 is the Russian claymore analogue). And a MANPADS with very, very heavy missiles (that whole package added up to about a third or half her body weight, not counting anything else she carried - normally these things are operated by two-man teams).

So she's prudent about carrying stuff... but she's... somewhat excessively eager, and only really gets away with carrying that much because she's A: crazily fit, B: stubborn enough that she accepts carrying all that stuff around as a valid form of exercise, and C: under a commander who makes a policy of not touching his subordinates' kit.

In this particular case, the Igla paid off - maybe a hundred to two hundred more Nasyans survived this version of events simply because the gliders were stalled in their assaults earlier on. But the majority of the time, it won't. (And to be honest, gliders are frail enough, and have to go so slow when they're on ground-attack profile, that you can probably fend them off with a pocket grenade launcher - O'Neill did in Fifth Man)

Really, the SGC should bring back that trolley thing from Children of the Gods. Makes it a lot easier to carry around lord knows what.

[Wyrd]

I neglected to mention that I really enjoyed Jack thinking about the fact that they are using inappropriate munitions for the enemies they are facing, he knows it, the entire base knows it, and the only reason they don't have weapons that require long bursts to take down a jaf'fa is because of red tape. It has bugged me a bit in the series that I know there is better equipment than what they had been using, but know that different equipment is better suited for different situations and that this might be standard kit for some outfit. At least bring armor piercing rounds when your primary enemy is generally armed in plate armor. Those rounds would also have a higher chance, though still low, of actually damaging some of their other equipment, such as the gliders.

[Pale Wolf]

I neglected to mention that I really enjoyed Jack thinking about the fact that they are using inappropriate munitions for the enemies they are facing, he knows it, the entire base knows it, and the only reason they don't have weapons that require long bursts to take down a jaf'fa is because of red tape.

I figured there had to be some reason it took four years to get P90s. So I marked it as 'Jack knew to get the damn things immediately, but red tape clogged it up'.

It has bugged me a bit in the series that I know there is better equipment than what they had been using, but know that different equipment is better suited for different situations and that this might be standard kit for some outfit.

Yeah, the combat teams (ie SG-3) definitely carry M-16s. The P90s/MP-5s are for explorer teams - because chances are 95% against them ending up in combat against jaf'fa, and they're gonna have to haul these things around for days on end.

At least bring armor piercing rounds when your primary enemy is generally armed in plate armor. Those rounds would also have a higher chance, though still low, of actually damaging some of their other equipment, such as the gliders.

Actually, 9mm can be fairly effective... if you're using Russian overpressure rounds, ie 7N31 and 7N21 - we're talking 'P90-scale penetration, but much, much larger wounds'. Though unfortunately, only a few weapons are properly chambered for them, as Arina pointed out, fire 'em in an MP-5 and it might explode in your hands.

[Manzikert]

Good to see this fic again. It's definitely raised my awareness of lower end SRW.

[Pale Wolf]

Heh, glad you're enjoying.

By lower end, I presume you mean the usual mook units? I've always been a Real-type fan, and 'mass-produced', to me, never meant crap - it meant it was the best thing they could economically afford. Which means it's what you equip your army with - and they can be damned good.

[Pale Wolf]

Disclaimer: No copyright is mine, thus no copyrighted character is. If you recognize them from something that's not written by 'Pale Wolf', I have no legal claim to them. If a list is requested, I'll dig it up.

The Shadow on the Other Side of the Mirror

By Pale Wolf

Chapter Four

Dark Prisoner

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Daniel Jackson wasn't quite sure whether he should be skipping for joy, or brooding angrily.

On the one hand, if what Jolinar had said was true, he knew where Sha're was. He could go and see her in a couple of months - once the one Abydonian year since he'd left was up, and the Abydonians excavated the Stargate to allow him travel. Once General Hammond got clearance to go and check up on one of Jolinar's leads to see if she was on the level, at least - Daniel didn't think it'd be too hard, though, since he was already cleared for the trip to Abydos, they'd just be going in a bit more cautiously and better-armed to make sure it wasn't a trap.

On the other hand, she was there in hiding because she was pregnant. With Apophis's child.

Because he didn't really like being angry, thinking about what Apophis and his 'spouse' had done to Sha're, and it was months before he could do anything about it either way, he'd opted to split the difference and focus on work. Hopefully if he just let his subconscious swill on it for a while, it'd be easier to deal with... less raw. It was work or brooding, honestly, and he preferred the former.

Even when the work was interrogating the other gould presently imprisoned in the SGC.

Daniel shook his head slightly, looking across the bars at the gould assassin. The man's host, at least, looked in his mid-late fourties - a rather nondescript appearance, average build, average height, black hair receding from the forehead, and a touch of gray at the temples... Perhaps as intended, Daniel would probably just ignore the man if there weren't an active at-work expression on his face. Though the bandaged, broken nose he was sporting after Jolinar had broke him spoiled the effect somewhat.

"You said your name was Edrekh?" Daniel opened up the dialogue, while unfurling the rolled-up sheet of paper the assassin had passed through the bars as he'd sat down in the chair they'd set up to keep the interrogation comfortable.

"That is correct." He sat, quite calmly, at the back of the cell.

Daniel glanced at the sheet of paper, frowning. It looked like blueprints, though he had no idea of what. "What is this?" So he asked.

"Schematics for the construction of a shield generator."

Daniel's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped a little bit. "Huh...?"

"Unfortunately, many elements of the design are too complex to be easily written down. The majority of goa'uld core technology is hand-crafted. I expect your workers will need to ask me for details I was unable to put down."

Daniel shook his head, putting the blueprints down and leaning forward. "No, wait... why are you being so cooperative?"

"There is something you must understand." Edrekh folded his hands together in front of him. "Goa'uld do not do 'loyalty' well. We are, as a product of the genetic memory of many goa'uld before us, self-interested in the extreme. There are cases where goa'uld find themselves caring about individuals outside themselves, for instance in the Tok'Ra there are fairly strong bonds. But in general, goa'uld have neither concern for, nor interest in, others."

Daniel pursed his lips. "So you're saying you're all psychopaths?" Not that he hadn't suspected it himself, but it was different hearing it from the horse's mouth. He was having a conversation with a gould... he'd certainly never expected that outcome...

"Possibly. I am unfamiliar with the term. Regardless, this is a majority issue only - there are those who deviate from this norm, in multiple different ways."

Daniel shook his head. "So... why are you being so cooperative, if you don't have interest in other beings?"

"Because I am not stupid."

Daniel imitated Teal'c in a raised eyebrow without further comment.

"My failure to kill Jolinar means that even if I returned to the System Lords, I would be tortured to death and brought back to do it again at least fourteen times. Imprisoned and without the element of surprise, it is essentially impossible to complete that mission. Even were I to escape and achieve some other objective beneficial to Cronus, he would not be forgiving - what he sent me to do was not done. The ideal outcome for me - that is, the outcome where I am not killed repeatedly until Cronus grows bored with it and allows it to stand - will be attained by siding with the Tau'ri, and doing what is possible to assure their victory."

Daniel stared.

"And, as a side note, providing the information you want freely ensures that you have little need to torture me. I have experienced it before, but prefer not to."

"Wait, wait, wait..." There were so many things wrong with this... "You're defecting?"

"Essentially. Cronus dispatched me on behalf of the System Lords as a whole - any other goa'uld I could attempt to go over to would simply destroy me themselves. I am sure it will take time before it is accepted."

"You killed two people here! And are responsible for... ugh, are you insane?" This guy had triggered the destruction of Nasya...

Edrekh nodded. "I did. Your superiours will simply have to decide whether it is more important to punish me for past actions under orders that will not continue, or to benefit from what I have to offer."

"And what if they pick the former? What if we torture you to death like you say the System Lords will?" They wouldn't, but how had Edrekh known that? Why was he assuming it?

"Then I am caught between two unpleasant outcomes. But the only positive outcome for me lies through you - if you accept my offer." The Ashrak shrugged. "When I'm dead either way, there is nothing for me to lose by going with the unknown."

"... So why are you giving it freely? Or is there a cost to this shield generator?"

"No cost. To put it simply, I find it more effective to put my new allies in an accomodating mood, than to scalp them for every scrap of information I provide. I will freely provide what I have, and perhaps you will freely repay it. If not, the only ones who lose are the System Lords, who, as a goa'uld, I hold no loyalty to."

Daniel frowned. "So wait... doesn't that mean you hold no loyalty to us, either?"

Edrekh inclined his head. "That is correct. We do not have loyalty - but my self-interest lies with you."

"And if that changes?"

Edrekh shrugged once more. "I am a goa'uld. I pursue my self-interest. I have stated what will happen if my best interests lie in another direction. It would be pointless to provide false assurance - you Tau'ri will simply have to decide what to do with what lies before you."

... Well, at least he was honest. "You know... you're very different from the other gould I've met. Usually they just kind of do that booming voice thing and tell us to kneel before them."

Edrekh's eyebrow rose. "Would you?" The resonant 'symbiote voice', of course.

"Probably not."

"Then it would have been pointless to do so, and leave you Tau'ri more inclined to seek my death. Very unwise."

"Okay... look. I see your logic here... so now you've got me wondering why every other gould I've met doesn't act the same." This just didn't add up right... Edrekh certainly wouldn't be the first defector in history, but he was a gould. This was completely out of Daniel's experience... though a rebel gould had turned up just a bit earlier, and... maybe there were a lot more fractures in the society than they'd first thought.

"That is most likely due to the sarcophagus."

Daniel blinked. "... The healing device?"

Edrekh nodded. "The sarcophagus acts as a narcotic with excessive exposure - prompting feelings of invulnerability and euphoria. After significant overuse of the sarcophagus, a goa'uld - possibly other races, but few other races have access - will feel invincible. Far more powerful than they truly are. Euphoric. They will not take well to losing that feeling."

"... You're telling me the gould are drug addicts? That they're naturally psychopaths, but that they're megalomaniacs because they're high?" Ten thousand years of oppression across the galaxy because the gould were on a bad trip...?

"Essentially. The System Lords may or may not have been more benevolent overlords without the sarcophagus, but at the very least, they would have been smarter and more realistic about it."

"And you're... what? Immune to the effects? A conscientious objector?"

"Too low-ranking to have access on demand to a sarcophagus."

... Oh.

"It's likely that most of the goa'uld you have dealt with thus far are System Lords, but the majority work on actually keeping things functioning - Ashrak such as myself, and technicians and craftsmen for the technology the System Lords do not wish to entrust to slaves, for instance. Though we are still viewed as divine by the slaves - the System Lords do not wish to shatter their mystique."

Well... that made some sense, the entire race couldn't be ruling planets... "... Are you saying that these lower gould might want to defect like you do?"

"Possibly. If it is in their best interests. One overlord is much like another, and the majority of us are quite used to serving. For instance, while ruling over a world is a pleasant thought... do I actually have the skills to do so? I do better as an Ashrak, and if the one above me benefits, that advances my position quite nicely."

Daniel shook his head, slowly standing up. "I... I'm going to need to talk to my superiours about this."

"I will wait."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

This was bullshit. But Arina Volkova wasn't really good enough with words to elaborate on how - let alone actually convince these damned 'Taldor' otherwise.

Apparently, P3X-775 was inhabited after all, despite the area around the Stargate being completely lifeless. Apparently, the inhabitants - or their government the Taldor at least - expected everyone around to be telepaths and know exactly what crime anyone around them may have committed, and every single one of the laws of a world they had never visited. And apparently they believed that helping a man who was running and begging for help meant they shared his crime. Which apparently, in their minds, meant life imprisonment.

Arina had never expected to meet people who made her look diplomatic.

So now Arina, and the rest of SG-1 for that matter, were tumbling through the Stargate to 'the prison planet, Hadante'.

Also apparently, two weeks wasn't enough time to fully recover from the proximity burns from that vulture's plasma cannons getting so close to her, or the tiny shrapnel wounds from being too close to her own missile. So she was hissing in pain as she came back up to her feet.

Aaaand there went 'Roshur', the guy they'd helped. Up to his feet and running instantly, despite Colonel O'Neill's protest.

Arina looked around as she rose. Hm... it looked like they were underground, there was earth underfoot, some plant life, and the closest things to 'structures' were very, very large tree roots - one being at least twice as wide as she was tall (admittedly not the highest challenge). And where in hell was the light coming from?

The roots seemed to hide the inhabitants of Hadante - people were slowly nosing out from behind them, presumably to see the newbies. Dressed the same as Roshur had been - very rough-woven clothing, quite 'medieval peasant', which seemed starkly at odds with the gleaming aircraft with its teleportation beam the Taldor had used to capture them. The prison locals being dressed like this, she could understand, but Roshur had just come from their homeworld. And they were all emitting a low, long whistle as they edged closer.

Arina was almost tempted to respond with the feline snarl her old unit had used to signal each other, before Doctor Jackson interrupted with a rather prudent question: "Why are they whistling?"

"O'Neill," Teal'c called, crouching down and drawing attention to something beneath them - a pair of smoking boots.

Captain Carter moved over to look, and immediately looked away. "Ugh, my God..."

Arina could smell the burning flesh, so she didn't bother looking - instead, she was opening up her fatigues slightly so she could slip her hand in, up her shirt... and the rewarding touch of cool metal made her smile.

"The wounds are cauterized," Teal'c noted.

"Yeah, so?" Colonel O'Neill prompted.

"So, whoever it was must have been standing in front of the gate when it opened," Captain Carter explained. "Disintegrated by the vortex."

Doctor Jackson again had the operative question. "... Why would anyone do that?"

About the best answer Arina could think of was 'I don't know', so she refrained from saying anything pointless.

Then one of the inhabitants came from behind the gate, darting in, grabbing the shoes, and standing up, staring silently at Captain Carter, the nearest member of SG-1.

"It's okay," Carter tried to reassure him. He began moving away, and she followed. "We're not going to hurt you. Please, we just want to talk to you." She grasped his shoulder to try and slow him down, make him listen. "It's all right, we just want to talk to you."

Teal'c and Arina noticed the prisoners beginning to converge on the scientist's position around the same time. "Captain Carter!" The two of them, and Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson, began moving to catch up with her, Arina pulling the one bit of gear the Taldor hadn't taken away from under her uniform as she moved.

A very, very large prisoner moved up behind Captain Carter, and hefted her up bodily. Carter flailed in surprise for a moment, before slamming her head back into the man's nose - it didn't shake his grip, though.

Arina brought up her MSP - a tiny, two-barrelled half-kilogram silent pistol barely the size of her palm - as she ducked to the side. She couldn't get a shot at the man holding Carter from the front, as Carter's body blocked most of him off, but... little bit to the side, and she squeezed the trigger.

No big show, just the whisper of a click, and Carter's attacker howled in pain. The SP-3 rounds weren't incredibly powerful and he was a damned big man, so a poorly-placed shot like that wouldn't take him down, but it ought to make him reconsider his intentions on Captain Carter. Arina reserved her second shot - the MSP took time to reload, so she'd have to rely more on fear than force here.

The man let go, clutching at the hole in his side, even as a powerful female voice cracked across the prison: "Vishnor!"

Captain Carter immediately whirled around and brought up her arms, ready to continue the fight. Arina noted that the man had stopped - both pain, and fear of that voice - and whisked her MSP away. Colonel O'Neill was eyeing her, though.

And the prisoners hemming in around them parted, leaving a channel through them, through which an elderly woman strode. Past Carter, and in front of the rest of SG-1. The hulking prisoner - Vishnor, presumably - froze still under a glance, and the woman proceeded to ignore him. She paused, evaluating them for a moment, before speaking. "You have been sent through the Great Circle."

Doctor Jackson nodded. "Well, yes, but that was an-"

The woman shook her head. "You have been sentenced to life imprisonment for your crimes, or you would not be here. I am Linea."

Doctor Jackson seemed a bit at a loss, but was recovering rapidly. "Well, I'm Daniel..." He gestured to each soldier as he said their names. "This is Jack, Captain Carter, Teal'c, and Sergeant Volkova. If you're the one who stopped this attack, I... suppose we're... grateful."

Colonel O'Neill seemed to develop a sudden coughing fit. Apparently Daniel hadn't spotted Arina's gun - it was a very quiet weapon, so it was understandable.

Linea raised an eyebrow, glancing at the large prisoner behind them, clutching at his wounded side. And then cast a look at Arina.

She knew. She didn't know what Arina had done, but she knew Arina had done it. The woman was extremely sharp.

Too sharp to be turning down a free message of her power in a prison environment. Fear was what kept these places running. She stepped between Arina and Captain Carter, laying a hand on each of their shoulders. "These women are under my protection. They are not to be taken by any man." Ugh. Arina hadn't even adjusted to considering that possibility yet.

Captain Carter shook her head. "Ah, no, it's all ri-" She stopped under both Linea and Arina's looks.

Linea turned her gaze to the large prisoner. "Is that clear, Vishnor?"

The man cringed, blood still seeping out from between his fingers where he held his wounded side.

"Is that clear?"

Vishnor turned, walking away... he didn't stagger, didn't want to show that he was weakened, but there was a heaviness to his motion. Unless he had some real friends in here, the man was going to be getting a beating once his energy ran out. At that point his position in the prison's social order would be gone, replaced by whatever gang smacked him and his around - assuming they didn't just kill him.

Arina would probably be more sympathetic if he hadn't just attacked Captain Carter and outright refused a 'do not rape these women' order from Linea.

The prisoners slowly began to disperse.

Linea turned back to Captain Carter. "You were saying?"

"Ah, that I can, uh, take care of myself." Probably a bit distracted from the rapid changes in events... barely fifteen minutes ago they had been about to return home from a routine exploration, and in that time they'd been arrested, sentenced to life imprisonment by people they'd never met, thrown into prison, assaulted by inmates, and rescued.

Arina shook her head. "They not know us - we can fend off, but we have to. She already has, take advantage of it." Ugh. She wished she were better at this language, she sounded like a three-year-old.

Linea nodded. "I mean no disrespect. But I know what it is to be a woman in Hadante." She turned back to the rest of SG-1 with a sigh. "For what little it is worth... welcome." Linea turned away in a swirl of her reddish robes, and strode away.

"Oh, ah, excuse me, but-but-but-"

"Daniel," Colonel O'Neill cut off his semi-babble. "I think that's about it for the welcome wagon." He nodded to Captain Carter as she rejoined their group. "You all right?"

She nodded. "Yes sir."

He turned to Arina. "And Volkova, how many guns were you carrying? This is getting a little disturbing."

Doctor Jackson blinked a few times as Arina brought her MSP back out, using the moment's breather to pop up the barrel and pull the clip out, and drop the casing from the fired round - the MSP was a stealth weapon, it didn't eject its casings - replacing it with a new round. She didn't have all that many, but she may as well keep it filled while she could.

Arina shrugged. "Only four. Guess they didn't strip-search to find this one. Appreciate that." She snapped the barrels closed, slipping the little holdout away.

Colonel O'Neill held up a finger. "The fact that I only find out you're carrying a gun in your panties when it actually turns out useful does not mean that it's always a good idea. Just... for the record."

Arina nodded. "Understood, sir." Bra strap, actually, but she could see no possible gain to pointing that out.

The Colonel clapped his hands together. "Okay, kids. We know what the situation is. Now how do we get out of it?"

Unfortunately, getting the Stargate - lacking in a DHD - functional enough to send them back home was mostly a technical problem - not within Arina's expertise. She'd contribute where she could, but suspected her main use in this little fracas would be in busting heads.

Places like this, you had no rights. There were probably a lot of innocents, but the monsters were stronger. And they didn't believe in anything - not even force, until you demonstrated it. She didn't really look forward to demonstrating it, but she was going to end up having to point out that not only were they under a dangerous person's protection, but they were dangerous themselves.

Make sure the smart ones could do their job.

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